"Neither did I," replied Ned uneasily, "and I'm afraid that's just where we made a big mistake. If we had only noted some landmarks as we came along, we would not be in this fix now. It really is a pretty serious fix, Clay. You see we can't tell how long we have been traveling in this wrong direction. The only thing we can do now is to head straight for the mountains, and run the chances of striking the creek in the vicinity of the camp."