Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1905-12-29
WHAT TO DO
WHEN LOST IN THE WOODS.
P''ue'ne the Story Of How They Found
the Doctor in West Virginia
Wilderness

! ONllessloh-or that try more severely his
courage ana self-possession, than getting
hopelessly bewildered and lost in a great
| primeval forest. 1t is more alarming in
| some ways, than a shipwreck at sea. and
more disconcerting to the mental faculties
than a sudden and unexpected attack in
| war; because in such cases the novice has.
! at least, the support of friends and COM
RACES, ana reels that he is under the COM
| potent expert guidance of officers who
have been trained to meet and deal with
| Just such emergencies. When, however.
| nc gets hopelessly lost in a great wider
| ness-perhaps without gun, compass.
| matches, or food-he is thrown suddenly.
! alone, upon his own resources; and II he
| happens to be unfamiliar with the woods
he is very apt to become panic stricken.
and to rush wildly hither and thither.
without moments reflection and with
| out any definite aim other than imme-
| date escape from his loneliness, appre-
| hension, and suspense. Men who have
| plenty OF nerve" in ordinary emergen-
cies, and who are not shaken or disrnay-
ed by the most threatening peril in other
fields, will sometimes go all to pieces
nervously, in senseless panic of ex-
citement and fear, when they happen to
get off a trail, or lose their way, in a
thousand square miles of unbroken forest
II is my purpose in this article, first, to
tell the story of a man who came to grief
90 NiAS iISulN VI uOlllb everything tlat ne
ought not to have done VIXEN he accident
ally wandered from trail in a wild part
OF West Virginia; and, second, to make
few practical suggestions to readers of
The Outlook who are going this summer
into the uninhabited parts of Maine,
Michigan, Canada, or the Adirondacks
and who may happen to lose their bear
ings while fishing or hunting in an ex-
tensive primeval wilderness. l do not
presume OF course, to offer advice or in
struction to expert woodsmen; but; mas
much as l have Joined many times in
searches for lost men, and have often
been lost myself-sometimes for five DAYS
at a stretch-in wild parts Of Asiatic
Russia, to say nothing of Canada and the
United States, i may venture perhaps,
to tell novices what they should do and
what they ought not to do when they
wander from a trail or get hopelessly
lost in the deep woods.
Many years ago l camped for six weeks
with party Of friends in the great gloomy
forest that overshadows the head-waters
OF the Cheat River, in one of the widest
parts Of West Virginia. 1t was then, in
every sense of the words, a primcval will
derness, of immense, closely set trees,
laurel swamps, and deep rocky ravincs,
intersected at long intervals by lines of
half -obliterated "bazes" cut by lumber
prospectors. or faint trails made by neigh
boring farmers who went into the woods
occasionally in the fall to hunt deer or
fish for trout. Our camp was situated
on one Of the small tributaries of the
Blackwater-a stream which runs for ten
or twelve miles through a shallow noun
tain valley between fringes of almost i'm
penetrable swamp-laurel and then
plunges into wild, rocky gorge, 1000 or
1900 feet deep, on its way to the Cheat
River. Downstream there was not
clearing nor human habitation, for
a IT
supplies was a farm house, on the edge
of the wilderness. belonging to a man
named Mckinney. This farm-hous was
connected by a mountain road with the
village Of Aurora, 25 miles away, and by
hunters trail with our camp on the
Blackwater, which was distant six or
eight miles, through one of the darkest
and loneliest forests that l have ever
seen.
One afternoon, about the middle of Sep
TENDER, a member of our party who had
gone to Aurora after mail came back to
camp, bringing with him a young man
named johnson, a physician from Wash
ington, d. c., who happened to be spend
ing his vacation at Aurora with two OF his
sisters, and who had come into the woods
for a single night in order to see what
camp life was like.
We spent pleasant evening together
In the little, windowless hunters hut that
morning Mr.. Hatch and l started with
DR.. Johnson for McKinneys farmhouse.
We had covered most Of the distance, and
were within a mile of our destination,
when the Doctor Qf remember rightly
said to Mr.. Hatch and me, There's no
use in your going all the way out of the
woods with me. It's a perfectly plain
trail, and you might as we'll go back to
camp and save your legs. ! can find my
way from here to McKinncy's all right
alone"
1t is a safe general rule never to leave
an inexperienced man alone in the woods;
but in this case the trail had been so i'm
proved by a month or more OF continuous
use that the possibility of the Doctors
losing his way on 1t never once occurred
to me. 1t was a well-trodden path. five
or six feet wide, which had been thorough
ly cleared of bushes, and over which we
had taken a pack-mule with supplies at
least half a dozen times In fact, 1t
seemed to me as easy to follow as a post
road. After exchanging a few farewell
words with the Doctor Mr.. Hatch and
shook hands with him, babe him good
by, and started back for camp, never
doubling for an instant that he would
reach McKinney's house in fifteen or
twenty minutes, and would rejoin his
sisters in Aurora that night
About ten o'clock the next morning
somebody in camp happened to discover
that we were running short OF butter, and,
as had nothing in particular to do that
day, l volunteered to go to McKinney's
farm after fresh supply. I walked out
of the woods in about two hours and a
half, got the butter, and was just starting
back when Mckinney inquired casually,
when is the Doctor coming out?"
Coming out!" 1 repeated in sudden
alarm. HE came out yesterday morn
Ing"
HE hasn't been here" said the farmer.
His horse is still in the barn. / looked
for him yesterday, because l understood
that he was only going to stay with you
one night, but he didn't turn up"
A cold chill crept down my back as
realized that the Doctor-a man wholly
without woods eXperience-was lost in
that great wilderness. ! knew that he
had neither compass, nor gun, nor food,
and l doubted very much whether he had
matches. What he would do In such an
emergency 1 could not conjecture, and
what might happen to him l dared not
imagine. If he had become panic
stricken, as 1 had known of other men
to become panic-stricken in similar cir
cumstances, he might have walked, in
the time that had elapsed since his dis
appearance, a distance OF fifteen or
twenty miles, and II so there was hardly
a chance that we should find him. The
unbroken forest between McKinneys farm
and the junction Of the Blackwater with
the Cheat covered nearly thousand