“Uh, oh.”
The others had been looking around the entrance cave, upset that their bags and supplies had been lifted from them, when Trace’s utterance made them swivel their heads in unison toward his direction.
Everyone stepped toward the entrance where he stood, peering outside. It took a second for what they were seeing to sink in.
“Damn it,” Bobby said. “Wrong exit.”
They all stared in disbelief. This couldn’t be.
Aspen, pine, spruce, and fir trees filled their vision. It was a thick forest, but there was no running water. Especially not a river. That meant no canoes. And no visible way home.
We didn’t bring a compass into the cave, Trace thought. Pretty dumb.
It was probably nearing sundown. From the mouth of the cave, they were staring directly at the sunset, which meant west. They’d left the canoes on the eastern side of the mountain, so they were nearly on the opposite side, half a mountain away. Trace tried to estimate the distance back, but it was beyond him. A long way, in any case, but doable.
Shelly was the first to speak.
“Should we go back inside, find a different tunnel? We must have missed something.”
