When the moon appeared, it apparently rose in the west. When we faced the moon, the valley was on our right when it should have been on our left. We spent a few minutes in trying to puzzle out our location and then, knowing that the moon must be in the east, we walked along the rim in that direction and soon came to the end of the point where the trail was located.

From there we could look down on our tent that showed up white in the increasing moonlight. We had done nothing wrong that night, but had become turned around by following the edge of a point of land that described a half-circle and by failing to see the break in the rimrock where the trail left the plateau. I encountered a similar situation one night while 'coon hunting. I intended to follow a small stream to a trail which crossed it and that would lead me out of the woods. As I followed this stream, I came to a branch which I mistook for the main stream and I followed this branch without noticing the change in the direction of the current. This took me deeper into the woods and I had to wait for daylight in order to find out what I had done. Occasionally we will become familiar with a section of the country without the use of a compass and we will find that our sense of direction is different than that of the compass. This does no harm unless we become lost and even then it is not important if we know the compass location of the area in relation to the surrounding territory.

There is one piece of woods which I know as well as I know my own back yard. I have hunted it many times and have never had any trouble in finding my way around, but if a man should meet me there and ask for the compass directions, I would have to look at my compass in order to give him the correct answers. To me, everything in that piece of woods is partly turned around. Even the sun is out of place, but I have adjusted myself to this unnatural condition so that I have no trouble in finding my way around.

The same thing happened to me in a southern city, so it is not the woods which cause a person to become confused in his directions. I arrived at this city in the nighttime on a train from the west. Unconsciously using this east-west railroad line as a direction base, I proceeded to make myself at home. I found a place to live that night and a place to work the next day. I don't remember when I first noticed that the sun was out of place, but it must have been within a day or two after I arrived.

I lived there for over a month, never had any trouble in finding my way around and never succeeded in straightening out my directions. It seemed odd to board an east-bound street car to go to the west end of town, but the strangeness soon became natural. I found that the train from the west circled the town and entered it from the southeast, and this is what put my mental compass out of order.

Five years later, I re-entered this city by daylight and it was like entering a strange town. Buildings that I recognized were on the wrong side of the streets. Streets ran the wrong way and I had more trouble in finding my way around than when I had first lived there and the sun came up in the west. The list of things which a hunter could use in the woods is almost endless, but the first thing on my list is a good compass. I have done a great deal of hunting without a compass and have never had very much trouble, but for the past twenty years I have never entered unfamiliar territory without this important aid.

It is advised, that even if you don't have tried to locate the place of your camp or the nearest shelter where you can spend your night. It is important to know where you are heading before its too long.