Mark looked surprised at the demand. "Everything shows they came this way," he said. He pointed to the tree that supported Barry's back. "That's a bitternut hickory tree—see, nuts." He brushed the dirt aside and uncovered several nuts. They were half rotted. "The boys found some and threw them. And there," he said, pointing, "see that sprout. Someone bent it to the ground, it still isn't straight again. And the marks of their feet, scuffing the dirt and leaves on the forest floor. It's like a sign saying, this way, this way."

Barry could see the difference when Mark showed him, but when he looked in another direction, he thought he could see scuff marks there also.

"Water," Mark said. "That's a runoff trail from melting snow. It's different."

"How did you learn about the woods? Molly?"

Mark nodded. "She couldn't get lost ever. She couldn't forget how things looked, and if she saw them again, she knew. She taught me. Or else I was born with it, and she showed me how to use it. I can't get lost either."

"Can you teach others?"

"I guess so. Now that I showed you, you could lead, couldn't you?" He had turned his back, scanning the woods, and now faced Barry again. "You know which way to start, don't you?"

Barry looked carefully about them. The scuff marks were on the path they had just made, where Mark had pointed them out. He saw the water trail, and looked harder for the trail they should follow. There was nothing. He looked again at Mark, who was grinning. "No," he said. "I don't know which way to go now."

Mark laughed. "Because it's rocky," he said. "Come on." He started again, this time keeping to the edge of a rocky trail.

"How did you know?" Barry asked. "There's no sign of them among the rocks."

"Because there was no sign anywhere else. It was all that was left. There!" He pointed, and there was another bent tree, this one stronger, older, more firmly rooted. "Someone pulled that spruce down and let it spring back up. Probably more than one did, because it's still not quite straight, and you can see now that the rocks have been kicked around."

The rocky trail deepened and became a creek bed. Mark watched the edges carefully and soon turned again, pointing to scuff marks as he went. The woods were deeper, the gloom more intense here. Thick evergreen trees covered the slope they began to descend, and sometimes they had to wind their way among the branches that touched one another in the spruce forest. The floor was brown, springy with generations of needles.