many miles. Who can say?"

Finding that Soa could give no further information, Leonard returned to
the others, and they huddled themselves together for warmth on the
wet ground as best they might, and sat out the hours in silence, not
attempting to sleep. The Settlement men were numb with cold, and Juanna
also was overcome for the first time, though she tried hard to be
cheerful. Francisco and Leonard heaped their own blankets on her,
pretending that they had found spare ones, but the wraps were wringing
wet, and gave her little comfort. Soa alone did not appear to suffer,
perhaps because it was her native climate, and Otter kept his spirits,
which neither heat, nor cold, nor hunger seemed to affect.

"While my heart is warm I am warm," he said cheerfully, when Leonard
asked him how he fared. As for Leonard himself, he sat silent listening
to the moans of the Settlement men, and reflecting that twenty-four
hours more of this misery would bring the troubles of most of them to an
end. Without food or shelter it was very certain that few of those alive
to-night would live to see a second dawn.

At last the light came and to their wonder and exceeding joy they found
that the rain had ceased and the mist was melting.

Once more they beheld the face of the sun, and rejoiced in its warmth
as only those can rejoice who for days and nights have lived in
semi-darkness, wet to the skin and frozen to the marrow.

The worst of the mist was gone indeed, but it was not until they had
breakfasted off a buck which Otter shot in the reeds by the river, that
the lingering veils of vapour withdrew themselves from the more distant