It was impossible to form any correct idea of its location, although, from the fact that the nature of the wood must prevent the rays penetrating very far, he was pretty certain it was comparatively close at hand.
With this belief he commenced making his way toward it, his movements certifying his consciousness that a mis-step would prove fatal.

To his dismay, however, he had advanced but a dozen steps or so when the light disappeared, and he found it impossible to recover it.

He moved from side to side, forward and backward, but it availed nothing, and he was about to conclude it had been extinguished, when he retreated to his starting-point and detected it at once.
Keeping his eye fixed upon it, he now walked slowly, but at the same point as before it disappeared.

This, he saw, must arise from some limb, or branch or tree interfering, and it only remained for him to continue advancing in the same line.

Having proceeded a hundred rods or so, he began to wonder that he still failed to discover it.
Thinking he might be mistaken in the distance, he went forward until he was sure he had passed far beyond it, when he turned and looked behind him.