e feeling of ravenous
appetite that began to attack them made their task of shifting wooden
fresh green spits, rather than skewers, laden with pieces of bird, from
place to place, where they could catch most heat from the glowing
embers, one that was tantalisingly hard.

There was bread-cake, too, in the hot ashes, and water boiling in the
big tin, ready for the tea to be thrown in, and very soon afterwards the
whole party were restoring strength over as delicious a breakfast as
could fall to the lot of hungry men and boys, who never once troubled
themselves at the want of milk, a table, or chairs.

"Now," said the doctor at last, "the sooner we're off the better; so
pack up."

"Do you mean to follow our yesterday's trail?" said Bourne.

"Certainly," said the doctor. "There is only that, or to go back; and
we can't do that."

"Certainly not," came in chorus.

"But is it not possible to take some other line, on account of the
Indians?" said Wilton.

"No," said the doctor and Griggs, almost together.

"If we strike off over the open land it means desert, and we shall be
full in sight of Indians if they came near," said Griggs.

"And if we strike in through the long grass we shall go more and more
into the bed of the unseen river, with the marshes to stop us before we
can get far."

"I see," said Wilton. "Off for the mountains, then. Yes, that's the
only way."

Half-an-hour later the little train was steadily advancing, the mules
making light of their loads, and proving by their playfulness--which
took the form of a disposition to bite or kick every one of their
fellows within reach--that they were thoroughly rested, refreshed, and
ready for as much work as would be demanded of their sturdy legs.

A sharp lookout was kept to their left over the open country as the
leading mule was steered, as he called it, by Griggs, close in to the
high grass, which acted as a screen against which they would have been
hardly seen; but nothing alarming appeared in the distance, and no
footprints of man and horse other than their own in the soft soil showed
that any enemy had crossed their trail to make for the hunting-grounds
to their right.

But night came on ere the slow pace of the laden mules had covered the
distance the explorers had got over by the previous afternoon, and there
the little caravan was guided right into a sheltered valley to the
borders of an elongated pool, where, well hidden from the plain,
prepa