The Shadow Girl by Ray Cummings

We stood together, there in the forest glen, for a minute or two exchanging swift whispers. The fellow Lentz -- I did not know who he was then, unfortunately -- stood a few feet from us. He was listening to the woods. Then he came to us.

"I thought we might have been heard. Was any one following you? " He addressed it to me.

Nanette and I had feared pursuit, but there had seemed none. We had tried to head south -- Josefa had said she would direct our pursuers the other way. She was to have fired a shot -- to make plausible her story that we had escaped her. We had heard no shot. Nor had Alan and Lentz. And in these silent woods the shot would have been heard plainly.

Nanette and I were wholly lost. I realized it when I tried to tell Alan which way we should go to reach the tower.

"We must get there at once," said Alan. He gestured toward Lentz. He whispered: "That fellow -- I may be wrong, but I don't trust him."

We could not agree on where we were, or which way might be the tower.

"Oh, Lentz! " He came closer to us. Alan whispered: "Which way would you say?"

The patch of starlight overhead was too small to help us. I suggested: "I'll climb one of these trees. If I can see the camp fire at Turber's -- "

But it would take too long. By now there was undoubtedly a Turber party of Indians in these woods searching for us. They might cut us off from the tower, or locate the tower itself.

"I think," said Lentz, "this way."

To me it seemed that he was right.

"But that's south," said Alan.

I did not think so. Lentz said: "I led you wrong before -- it was my mistake. But I am sure now."

His frankness convinced us. We started. Lentz was leading; Alan and I guided Nanette. Slow, careful going. We made as little noise as we could. We came to a slight rise of ground. A distant gleam of water showed ahead of us.

"Alan, look!"

"That's the East River."

"Yes, I think so."

It seemed so; it was very faint through the trees. Lentz had not seen it -- or he ignored it. But he heard that we had stopped; he turned and came back.

"What is it?"

"That water -- the river off there! We're going wrong."