Then I can find out which way it points, by remembering how the woods look around home, where I know the points of the compass." This was an excellent beginning, and Sam straightway began looking for something which should guide him.

A patch of sunflowers grew by the creek, and he had heard that they always turn their heads to the sun, but upon examining them, he found some of them turned one way and some another, so that they were of no use whatever.

Presently he observed some beautiful green moss growing at the root and for a good many feet up the trunk of a tree, and looking around he saw that the moss at the roots of all the trees grew only or chiefly on one side, and that the covered side was the same with all of them.

Here was a uniform habit of vegetation, and Sam knew enough to know that such a habit was not likely to be confined to one particular locality.

He began thinking of the woods around home, and especially of a clump of trees in the yard at his father's house, the moss-covered roots of which were Judie's favorite playing place.