<TITLE>14. Par 48-51</TITLE>L-48 So I struck up the canyon, just a little water rippling like this. And I took right up the canyon just as hard as I could go. I happened to look up. And I said, "Say, I'm going to have to hurry. That storm's getting in here close." And it gets down, foggy, and then you can't see nothing.
And I started walking, walking, walking. I said, "Now, let's see, I turned off along here somewhere." Kept looking and looking... First thing you know, I walked, and walked, and walked. And I thought, "Say, that's a long ways, but I never have seen where I come out."
The first thing I know, I thought... Just drop... perspiring. And I--I took my old red handkerchief out, and wiped my perspiration off, and looked around. There hung my deer. I said, "What did I do? I didn't turn around and come back." Well, I said, "I missed my place." So I started off again. And I walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, watching on my right-hand side, 'cause I knew I turned from the right-hand side. I turned left and I'd have to turn back right.

L-49 But then the storm was down in the bushes then. So then I walked, and walked, and walked again. And the first thing you know, I got real tired. I thought, "Well, I'm watching close. I'll surely know just where I come off where that little knoll 'cause the mountains sided off like this in a saddle." And I crossed over that saddle and then down and up.
Of course, couldn't see the mountains then ahead, away from us 'cause it was too--too foggy, or I could've climbed upon a high place and looked around. But it was fog and I couldn't get into it, and it fixing--spitting snow and stuff. So I went a little farther around like this, and I happened to stop and look. And I was back to my deer again.

L-50 Now, the Indians calls that the death march, or the death walk, rather. You're on a knoll, or a flat place, and you're walking in a circle, no compass, no nothing. I never took a compass in the woods. I--I just thought I was too good. I--I couldn't get lost. You see? God had to learn me some sense, so put some brains in my head to let me know that I wasn't self-sufficient. I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
And I kept walking around. I come back to this deer. I did that three times. And I knew I was lost. Well, I... Then I got shaky. It was down about four-thirty in the afternoon, nearly five o'clock, plumb getting dusky, almost dark. I thought, "Mercy, now what will I do? My wife's all worried. She'll die as sure as the world, her and that baby both in these mountains tonight."
Now, if it would been myself, I--I'd have tried to find that bear again or got me a place somewhere and hibernated up for a day or two, till that storm was over. See?

L-51 Now, I want to use a little illustration here. For myself, I'd have went to that cave, or under some rocks somewhere and got me a fire and some wood down. And never tried to find it, 'cause it was foggy. But I couldn't do that then. It was an emergency.
And I knew that my wife, never in the woods in her life until the night before that, she wouldn't know how to bit more how to make a fire than--than nothing. And that little boy, they'd die as sure as the world, 'cause it'd probably go way in below zero that night. And they would be scared to death. And they'd might try to prowl through the wilderness somewhere, or go frantic hunting for me, or something, or screaming. And--and it's hard tell what would take place. And I know if something would let out a yelp up there, they both would faint, sure enough. And I knowed there was a lion right in that section there.


<A HREF="P15">Next Page</A>