“The only thing against it, sir,” said he, “is, that our course may not have been so perfectly straight.” “But then,” said the doctor, “I took particular care, and always kept several trees in line before me, so as to go straight.” “Still, sir,” said Bruce, “travelling in the woods is a very peculiar thing. I’ve done it often. I’ve lived for weeks in the woods, camping out; and it’s always been my experience that a man can’t go straight, unless he has a compass, or at least some general landmarks. An Indian might, perhaps; but I’m sure I couldn’t.” The doctor seemed quite impressed by this. “Well, Bruce,” said he, “I know you have had far more experience in the woods than I can pretend to, and I should like very much to get your opinion without reserve.” “You see, sir,” said Bruce, “everybody has a tendency, in the woods, to lean to the right. It’s the same, I’ve heard, on the western prairies. I don’t pretend to know the cause of it. I only know it’s so. This makes one go in a kind of curved line, so that if one wanders long enough he’ll perform a sort of circle. I know once, in Cape Breton, I actually came back to the place I started from, and all the time I thought I was miles away. I took great pains, too, to walk straight; and it was a better country than this. Now we’ve been working our way through all kinds of places. We’ve been in thick underbrush, where, for my part, I don’t see how it was possible to keep a straight course. We’ve had to go round rocks and fallen trees. After breaking a straight course by making such a circuit, however small, it seems to me almost impossible to take it up again. A slight mistake at the outset makes a great difference by the time you get to the journey’s end.” “Well,” said the doctor, “where do you think we may be? Point out on the map the place.” “I can’t do that,” said Bruce, “of course. I can only say that I think we’ve been, as usual, swerving to the right; and if so, we are now really much nearer to Scott’s Bay than we are to Hall’s Harbor.” The doctor now sat thinking for some time. “There’s a great deal in what you say, Bruce,” said he, at length, “and I’m very glad you’ve given your opinion. At the same time I feel quite confident that, if I have swerved to the right, it cannot have been to any great extent. The care which I took was so extreme, that my calculations cannot be much out of the way. I dare say I may have lost my course a little while going through the thick underbrush, but I’m convinced that I found it again pretty correctly. Now I will mark out a new track on the map, and make allowance for any deviation from a true course.” Saying this, the doctor traced a new line, which curved slightly to the right, and made their present position somewhat farther away from Hall’s Harbor than the former conjecture had made it. Still this new estimate made them much nearer to Hall’s Harbor than to Scott’s Bay. He showed this to Bruce, and asked him what he thought of it.