My father frowned, and I scooched down in my chair. He was going to talk serious.

“All right, Tim,” he said. “Let’s say you wandered away from camp and got turned around and the next thing you knew, you were lost. What would you do?”

“I wouldn’t get lost,” said Tim. “I don’t care what Miss Smarty Pants says, I do have a compass, and I know how to use it.” He took it out of his pocket, the genuine fluid-damped direction finder he had earned by selling subscriptions to Munsey’s Magazine.

My father smiled. “You could have forgotten it,” he said. “Or maybe you fell down and broke it. Tim, too much pride is a dangerous thing. Everybody who goes in the woods often enough is bound to get lost sooner or later. The difference is, the real woodsman gets out without much trouble, while the tenderfoot only gets in more trouble and somebody has to go fetch him. Now answer me.”

Tim thought for a moment. “Well, if I knew I wasn’t more than a mile or so from camp, and you or Pete was there, I’d just sit down and light two smokes fires.”

“How would you get the smoke?”

“I guess I’d use curled up birch bark and dry wood to get a good hot fire going, then I’d throw rotten wood and grass over it.”

My father nodded. “That’s very good. But what if you didn’t have matches?”

“I’d use my flint and steel.”

“You left that in camp.”

“Then I’d make a fire bow and get some embers glowing by whirling a stick in a piece of pine punk.”

“Yes,” my father agreed, “it’s not easy but I’ve seen you do it. But let’s say it’s nearly dark and you don’t have time to build a fire.”

“Then I’d use the sun, if it was up, to get my direction. If it was night, I’d watch the stars.”

“It’s overcast.”

Tim was running out of answers. He squinted at the middle distance as if reading the answer on the kitchen wall. “I suppose I could get north by the moss on the trees,” he said.

“No, boy,” said my father. “That only holds true for a big tree standing by itself out in a field. In the forest, the moss can be on any side of the tree. The light’s all diffused, and there’s no steady wind, so the moss grows any which way.”

Tim thought again. “Well,” he said, “if you or Pete knew I was missing, the best thing would be for me to just stay where I was. If I got to wandering around in the woods, we could miss each other. But if I stayed put, you’d come on me a whole lot easier.”

“Fine.” My father turned to me. “Lizzy, now you’re lost, and there’s nobody in camp. Nobody’s going to come looking for you, and you’ve got to get out by yourself. How do you start?”

“Find water,” I said.