At the time I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.
Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of body and spirit afterward.

It may have been three days of wandering, or it may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say for certain.

Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it would never end.

My father believed that he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements elsewhere.

If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it.