This announcement filled the young soldier's mind with alarm; for upon Telie's knowledge of the woods he had placed his best reliance, conscious that his own experience in such matters was as little to be depended on as that of any of his companions. Yet it was necessary he should now assume the lead himself, and do his best to rescue the party from its difficulties; and this, after a little reflection, he thought he could scarce fail in effecting. The portion of the forest through which he was rambling was a kind of triangle, marked by the two roads on the east, with its base bounded by the long looked for river; and one of these boundaries he must strike, proceed in whatsoever direction he would. If he persevered in the course he had followed so long, he must of necessity find himself, sooner or later, in the path which Telie had failed to discover, and failed, as he supposed, in consequence of wandering away to the west, so as to keep it constantly on the right hand, instead of in front. To recover it, then, all that was necessary to be done was to direct his course to the right, and to proceed until the road was found. The reasoning was just, and the probability was that a few moments would find the party on the recovered path. But a half-hour passed by, and the travellers, all anxious and doubting, and filled with gloom, were yet stumbling in the forest, winding amid labyrinths of bog and brake, hill and hollow, that every moment became wilder and more perplexing. To add to their alarm, it was manifest that the day was fast approaching its close. The sun had set, or was so low in the heavens that not a single ray could be seen trembling on the tallest tree; and thus was lost the only means of deciding towards what quarter of the compass they were directing their steps. The mosses on the trees were appealed to in vain,--as they will be by all who expect to find them pointing like the mariner's needle to the pole. They indicate the quarter from which blow the prevailing humid winds of any region of country; but in the moist and dense forests of the interior, they are often equally luxuriant on every side of the tree. The varying shape and robustness of boughs are thought to offer a better means of finding the points of the compass; but none but Indians and hunters grown gray in the woods, can profit by _their_ occult lessons. The attempts of Roland to draw instruction from them served only to complete his confusion; and, by and by, giving over all hope of succeeding through any exercise of skill or prudence, he left the matter to fortune and his good horse, riding, in the obstinacy of despair, withersoever the weary animal chose to bear him, without knowing whether it might be afar from danger, or backwards into the vicinity of the very enemies whom he had laboured so long to avoid.