December 28: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—/ I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." (from Aleine Skyfire)

Watson

More than once during the career of Sherlock Holmes, I had to drag him away from his work to avoid allowing him to work himself into complete exhaustion.

During one of these, in the dead of winter, the two of us stayed with Holmes's old friend, Victor Trevor. After several days, when Holmes had recovered well enough to do so, he, Trevor, and I went for a walk in the forest on the edge of the grounds.

Trevor and I were chatting away, Holmes walking quietly behind us. We had walked for some distance, when I turned to make some comment to Holmes, only to see that he was not there.

"Blast!" I said. "Where's he got to?"

Trevor turned round, then shook his head. "Who knows…"

"Well," I said, "I suppose we'll just have to retrace our steps until we see where his footprints branch off from the main path."

Trevor nodded, and the two of us headed back where we had come.

"I can't believe he still does that sort of thing," said Trevor with a nervous chuckle. "He must be a bit of a nightmare to live with."

"Ha! You don't know the half of it," I replied, and began to tell stories of Holmes's irritating habits.

Trevor commiserated, and shared a few he recalled from Holmes's college days. "Though as irritating as he can be, I hope no harm's come to him."

"So do I," I replied.

Though it took longer than I wished it would, it was no difficult task to find where the footsteps had branched off; the snow had only fallen the night before, so the only footprints in the snow were our own. When we reached this point, we followed the solitary footprints until we reached Holmes, who was standing quietly, staring up at the snow-covered tree branches above him.

"Holmes!" I gasped.

My friend turned round in apparent surprise. "Hello, Watson, Trevor."

"What in heaven's name were you doing, leaving without a word like that?" I asked.

Sherlock Holmes shrugged his thin shoulders. "I thought it might be more interesting this way," he replied. "Following one's own path is generally more interesting than following the masses."