I had not used my tomahawk on the previous day, except to blaze the first tree, therefore there must be some way of getting back without using it--if I could only find that way. I was making for the west. Suppose after a time I should be certain I was going wrong, I could return with ease along the blazed track back to my camp, and start a new line, which I should also blaze, using a new tomahawk cut on the trees, and if that line failed, return and try again, always using the tree under which I had camped as a starting-point. I might fail half-a-dozen times or more, yet, with patience, I had a good chance to come out right in the end. Again, although I did not reckon on it in my case, as I had no hopes of a search party coming to look for me, if you should ever be bushed, and you think it possible for a search to be sent to find you, it is a very good thing to carry out the above plan, and always return to your first camp, as most probably it will be the nearest spot to help; and if you pass your time in blazing lines (being careful to keep your lines distinct) the party looking for you will most likely strike one of your tracks and easily follow it to your assistance. Knowing all this, I started, taking a course due west. I had no compass, but as a trained bushman I wanted none, and with all my senses on deck I began blazing trees on my line, taking care to spot every noticeable thing _en route_, and frequently looking back to see my track ran straight. Sometimes I fancied I was going right and I felt the impulse to run; but this feeling I at once suppressed, and determined I would play the game to the end. Past midday I knew I was wrong, as I came to a steep cliff descending perpendicularly into a deep valley, so I knew I could not have crossed it before. I was disappointed but by no means disheartened; so after a good look around I turned in my tracks and easily regained my camp, where I cooked more birds, had a good supper and slept without any bogeys coming to trouble me. On the morning of the third day I started again and blazed a new line, in a north-west direction; but again I met with disappointment and returned to my base. You may ask how it was that, as a trained scout, I did not try to follow my own spoor back to my starting-point. I will tell you at once. I was far too old at the game to waste my time by doing so. Of course I was always on the look-out for any trace I had left; but there is very little soft ground on the top of New Zealand ranges, and although I was in a daydream on the first afternoon, yet I knew that, instinctively, I should have avoided any soft or damp ground, also the gloom in a bush is not a good light to track by. An Australian black fellow might have been able to follow my spoor, but no one else, so I did not try to.