Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/309

 through; no fire we can start in the woods will dry them or make us comfortable. When your shoes are soaked don’t take them off even in the house, but walk, walk, walk. Soon your chilled feet will become warm, and the man who dries his stockings and shoes upon him will never catch cold therefrom.”

It was the best of advice, and Alden never forgot it. He could hold the general direction, and the few miles between him and the station were but a brief walk for which in ordinary circumstances he would care nothing. Before leaving the stream he did another sensible thing. He studied the myriads of stars in the sky and fixed upon one of the first magnitude. In the crystalline air, it gleamed like the sun it really was. He thought it was Venus, but whether right or wrong, he knew the location of the planet and he determined to make it his compass.

Without such a guidance he would inevitably drift from his course, follow a circle and come back to his starting point, or never get anywhere except to the place he shouldn’t go.

It seemed strange to Alden that he saw no emigrant train plodding westward. With the hundreds dotting the country all the way from