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Then, as if the sleep had just cleared from her mind, Charlie remembered that she had a flashlight. As Charlie bent forward to feel for her backpack, a multi-legged creature crawled onto her hand. Startled into retreat, Charlie scrambled back inside of her sleeping bag to wait for morning.

"'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee [God],'" she prayed, silently.

How long it was before she fell asleep, Charlie didn't know, but the next time she opened her eyes, it was the morning of the third day. With a breath of relief, she crawled out of her sleeping bag and thanked God for getting her through the night. Suddenly recalling her enigma of the misplaced sky, Charlie looked up. Overhead, she saw a large rock shelf, obviously the culprit that had blocked out her part of the sky, the night before. No wonder she couldn't see any stars! As Charlie gathered her gear, she realized that there had been nothing to be apprehensive about, after all.

What had started as a hike to revisit her childhood, had now turned into a search and rescue. Charlie only prayed that she wouldn't need to be the one rescued.

After eating a quick breakfast, she resumed the tedious task of following those hearts and flowers through the underbrush and across the all too often hard ground. Every once in a while, the hearts would change direction, as if trying to find some familiar landmark that would signal familiar ground. Charlie knew this was dangerous logic. She remembered Chuck telling her that when you find yourself saying, "I think that's the same tree," or "the mountain might have looked like that," then you're lost and need to admit it. Thankfully, Charlie was suffering no such delusions. Even though this ground was unfamiliar to her, she had marked the trail with hair scrunchies, so she could easily find her way back. This was yet another skill Chuck had instilled in her, (though not with elastic ponytail holders).

As the day began to fade in the sky, Charlie decided to make one big effort to follow the tracks for as long as the daylight would hold out. The danger in this was, that if she lost the trail in the fading light, then it would be extremely difficult to go back and decipher where she had gotten off track, the next morning. Also, she could unwittingly disturb the girl's tracks with her own. It was a difficult judgment call, but Charlie decided that it was necessary. With each passing day, she had the feeling that she was falling further and further behind. By the tracks, Charlie saw that the girl was now in full panic, and at times, even running in the blind hope that help was just over the next horizon. Even though the teenager had never set eyes on the girl, she knew what the child was feeling. Every footprint told the story. Now it was getting to the end of the third day, and Charlie was making the bold decision to press on for as long as there was any visible light in the sky.

Charlie followed the shallow imprints in the ground, until the tracks came to a flat rock. Just as she was preparing to circle the area, she heard the the faint cry of a child. At once, Charlie followed to where the sounds were coming from.

"Hello!" Charlie shouted at the top of her voice. "Where are you?"

"Help me!" came the reply.

Charlie smiled in spite of the plea for help. She had at last caught up with the girl!

"I'm over here!" cried the child. "Please, help me!"

"I'm coming!" shouted Charlie. "Just hold on! Keep talking to me, so I can find you!"

Charlie followed the sound of her voice until she suddenly found herself on the edge of a steep precipice. The girl's voice was coming from the bottom.

"Are you hurt?" shouted Charlie, trying to shine the flashlight down into the shadows, but seeing nothing but underbrush.

"My leg won't move!" cried the child.

"Okay, hold on," said Charlie, running back to to retrieve her gear.

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