<TITLE>07. Par 24-28</TITLE>L-24 My mother's a part indian. And I thought I was too much of a woodsman to ever be turned around. So I told her; I said, "Now, Meda..." Billy was with her then, about five years old. And I said... His mother, you know, is dead. And so, I said, "Now, you have my dinner ready, I'll be back about noon. I'm going down here. There's a bear using that side of the mountain, and I'm going down."
Well, I got on the trail of that bear, and I kept on going. And went over in a few more hills, and a few more hills. And after while, I looked across and I seen a great big buck, just what I was looking for for that fall. I shot the deer, and I said, "Say, looky here. There's a storm coming."

L-25 And if anyone ever hunted and know what a storm means in the mountains, you'd just better set down. But I couldn't set down; I had a wife and baby; and they was in the woods for the first time in life in a little lean-to. Well, they'd freeze to death. It would go ten below that night. And that storm coming, it might last two or three days. And my wife's the biggest coward I ever seen in the woods, and she'd be scared to death. So I thought I must go back.
So I got my gun up real quick. And I put on my coat. And I started up a little drain that I'd come down. And I walked. The fog was coming low, and the wind down low. And I said, "Oh, I know how to get out of here, I'll just go straight back up, go over the side of the hill, and go right over to the camp. It isn't over five miles from here."

L-26 So I walked and I walked. And I said, "Where did I turn off at here?" And the first thing you know, I stopped, and I was standing by the side of my deer. I started again, and I come back to the same place. I started again, going one certain way, and come back to the same place. Now, the indian calls that the death walk; you're walking in a circle. You'll never get out of that. So, and I'd come over... I knew I'd crossed over the mountain some way and got into the, what's called the giants, it was flat. But which a way could I go back? How did I get away from that circle?
Well, I got nervous. And I said, "Now, wait a minute. Billy, you're too good a woodsman to be lost," talking to myself. "You know you know how to get out of here. You must know. Meda will die, and so will Billy. And you must go out of here." I said, "Sure. I know how to get out. I'll just go right up here, and turn off, and go over."

L-27 I started walking. And I got more nervous. And I knowed I was lost. And the fog was almost as low as that curtain. And I... Blowing through there, just snowing, fogging, wind... And I knew it was going to be a problem to get out of there.
And I started. I said, "Now, when I come over the mountain, the wind was in my face. So I'm going right straight back with the wind." And I had the wind to my back. If it was in my face... And I started off that way. And when I did, I heard Something quote this Scripture, which came to me this afternoon. "God is a--a very present help in a time of trouble. He is our refuge and our strength." Well, I just kept walking on. And then it kept getting louder and louder. "Oh," I said, "I'm imagining that." I said, "Now, I know I'm getting nervous."

L-28 When anyone's lost any amount of time, they get a fever. Then they start running, get out of their head, fall over a cliff or something and kill themself. And so, I knew that was what was happening to me, that I was going to get that fever coming on me, because I was thinking of my wife.
Ordinarily, I'd have found a little place and pulled in, got me a porcupine or something, and that'd been it till the storm was over. But I couldn't think for them. They were going to die. And I said, "I must get to them." So I said, "I'm getting nervous now. So I'll know this is the way, and I'm going right straight this a way."
And Something kept saying, "God is our refuge, and He is a present help in the time of trouble."


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