It seemed to him now that he had been a long time wandering, and he began to be anxious to discover the rock. How to do so he did not know, and could only think of climbing a tree so as to take a survey of the country. Unfortunately none of the trees were very large; but he selected the tallest one that he could find, and climbed up as high as he could. He now looked all around. The prospect gave but little satisfaction. On every side other trees arose above the level of his outlook, and shut out from view the scene beyond. He therefore learned nothing whatever from this survey, and was compelled to descend disappointed. What now to do became a serious question. There was the rock, and there was the river, either of which it would be equally advisable to regain; but in what direction did they lie? It seemed to him that the rock ought to be west of his present position, and the river south. If he could go either westward, or southward, or in any intermediate direction, he would regain his course. Yet that was the very thing that he was unable to do. He had no compass, and now bitterly regretted that he had not brought one. Overhead there was nothing that could afford him any assistance, for the sky was all overspread with that smoke which he had noticed all along, and the sun could not be seen. There was nothing left, therefore, but bare conjecture. He now tried, as far as possible, to recall his confused wanderings. Although he could not, of course, recall the details of his journey, yet, as he thought it over, it seemed to him that, on the whole, he had been making progress in some one direction, and that, if he could but go back, he would be more likely to reach the river or the rock than in any other way. As he looked back over his course, it seemed to him that the west lay there, and to the left of that was the south; so that if he could now only effect some progress in that direction, all would be well. He therefore made up his mind to go back again, as far as going back over his lost track was possible; and as he could not think of plunging again into that thicket, he thought that when he reached it he would turn to the left, and avoid it if possible in that way. Accordingly, he now set out in the endeavor to go back on his path. No vestige of anything like a trail appeared to him, nor was there a single thing that he remembered having seen before. He walked on now for a long time, expecting every moment to reach that tangled thicket which he had considered as the chief difficulty in his way back. To his utter amazement, he came across no tangled thicket of any kind whatever. The woods, instead of growing denser, seemed to grow more open, and his progress grew easier. The woods now were precisely like what they had been daring their walk early in the day.