Every scout worth his salt should carry in his head a map of the road he has been traversing that day, and when he is about to return on the back track he should at once be able to see that road with his mind's eye, its salient points, its landmarks, its difficulties, and everything worthy of note along it. Well, when I turned I naturally cast my mind's eye on to my map and found a blank. I had noted nothing from the time I had hung up the birds and blazed the first tree; and I cussed myself for my folly. It was now I felt bush fear; for a desperate longing came over me _to run_ and try to find my way; but this I combated with all my will-power, and after a minute's struggle forced myself to sit down under a tree and think if I could not remember anything that might recall the road to mind; but in vain. The only thing to guide me was that I had shot a pigeon which had fallen into a fork of a tree and stuck there; that incident could be of but little use to me, yet I treasured it. Again the desire, stronger than ever, came over me to run and look for the tree I had blazed; and again I had to fight it away.
Was I, fool as I had been, to lose my head and run mad through the bush like an untrained new chum? Not by a jugful. I would camp where I was, and next morning, with a clear head, would try to unravel the puzzle. Work was the thing for me, and I turned to. It did not take me long to collect plenty of firewood and make down a good fern bed. Water I could hear close by, and when I had filled my pannikin I lit my fire, for night falls quickly in the New Zealand bush, and overhauled my stores. I had my gun and over thirty cartridges left, and, besides what food I had brought with me, I had ten fat birds; so there was no fear of starvation for a long time. I had also no fear of thirst, as there is always plenty of water to be found in a New Zealand bush; so I was well off, though I could not disguise the danger. Anyhow I would have supper and think matters out, over a pipe, afterwards. In next door to no time I had two birds plucked, cleaned, and spitted on a splinter of wood, with a biscuit on a clean piece of bark under them. My pannikin, full of water, on some embers, soon boiled; to this was added some tea and sugar mixed, and I had a feast for the gods. True, I only had my sheath knife and fingers to eat with, but what of that? I was an old campaigner and could dispense with luxuries. Then, my meal over, I lit my pipe and thought out my position. I was in a hole, that I knew, and I should require all my bushcraft to get out of it. It was not as if I was in a forest on a plain, but I was in a regular jumble of broken ridges, valleys and spurs, all of them heavily bushed. The only thing I had to look for was a blazed tree with some birds hanging on to it, and I did not know if I were north, south or east of it; nor could I judge my distance from it; for although I knew I had walked about four hours and a half, and that I had turned south when I left the tree, yet, for all I knew, I might have worked round in a circle and at the present moment be due north of it, or have turned farther to the east.
