<TITLE>04. Par 17-20</TITLE>L-17 I can remember a story. And my wife back there remembers it more than I do, I suppose. On our honeymoon I had to make a little double time. While we were on our honeymoon, we didn't have but just a little money, so I--I took her up into New York to see Niagara Falls. And while we was up there I went hunting. And I left her in a little lean-to one morning. And I thought I was too good an Indian to ever lose myself in the woods. And I wandered away, telling her I'd be back at a certain time, and her a city girl and never been in the mountains in her life. And I said, "You bake some potatoes over the fire and we'll have bake roasted potatoes, and salt and pepper, and put it on the little stick of butter." I said, "We'll just have a real jubilee. I'll be back at two o'clock."

L-18 And I put my hand on top of Billy's head, which was just a little tot at that time of about five years old, and took off down through the woods. Wandering along through the great giant forest, I was following a bear trail. After while I noticed something across the ridge. And I took across another ridge, and then another ridge, and I got down into the bottom, which is called the giants. It's in the Adirondacks. And I shot a deer, a great huge deer, and I said, "That's better than the bear. Now, I'll go back home."
And as I noticed, the storm clouds was hanging low. And I said, "Now, I come right down this a way."
Now, anyone knows that's ever been in the woods, it's time to sit down when the storm clouds come, 'cause it's foggy; you don't know where you're going.
But as I got further upward, thinking I was going right, I found myself walking too far trying to find a place to come out, I come back to where I shot the deer. I did that three times in succession. Now, the Indians calls that "the death walk." You're walking in a circle. You think you're going one way but coming back to the same place.

L-19 The storm was already on; the snow was falling. And I thought, "What can I do now? I got a wife and baby in this woods was never in the woods in their life, and they'll--they'll die tonight."
Ordinarily I'd have found a cave, and went into it, and waited till the storm was over a day or two, and come out, and found my position, and went on. But they didn't know how to take care of themselves.
And I said, "Now, wait a minute; you're just getting beside yourself." And when you do that you get a fever and then you're lost. Then you'll never find your way out: plunge yourself to death, mostly.
Well, I knew I was walking in a circle, but what circle was it? The wind was coming in my face when I went to shoot the deer, and then on the road back the wind was in my face again. So I couldn't tell the general directions because it was just twisting in the treetops.

L-20 And I said, "Well, I'm going one straight way again." And I said, "I'll not turn. I'll go straight, and I know that I'm right. I'm too good a woodsman to ever be lost in the woods."
And I started on, kind of spurning myself on, that's intellectually. "I can't get lost, because I'm too good a hunter." And I started on, and I begin to realize that I was lost.
That's the way we get sometimes when we think we join a church and we're all right, but there's something tells us we're lost. Wait till death strikes you, and then see what you think. Better be sure now.
And as I started on sincerely in my heart, I can hear a voice speaking to me, saying, "The Lord is a very present help in the time of trouble."
And I thought, "Now, I'm getting beside myself." Then I realized that I was completely lost. And I knelt down and--on my cap, and set my rifle beside of the tree, and said, "Lord God, I'm lost and I need You."


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