Perhaps he had been unconscious on the schooner a long time.

He felt of the lump which was not yet wholly gone from his head, and tried his best to tell how old it was, but he could not do it.
The little cloud in his golden sky disappeared when he rose and started again through a fine forest.

His spirits became as high as ever.

Looking westward he saw the dim blue line of distant hills, and he turned northward, inferring that New York must lie in that direction.

In two hours his progress was barred by a river running swiftly between high banks, and with ice at the edges.