Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/152

 won't get much by stopping here. Evidently the only reason they have not relieved us of their presence is that they have not been able to get their boat made seaworthy."

Briant's news was of the greatest importance to the little colony. It showed for certain that Charman Island was not isolated in the Pacific as they had thought. But the fact that Walston had taken up his quarters at East River seriously complicated matters. He had left the place where he had come ashore, and come a dozen miles nearer the camp. He had only to ascend the river to reach the lake; and he had only to skirt the southern shore of the lake to discover French Den.

To provide against this, Briant had to take every precaution. Henceforth the boys were allowed out only when absolutely necessary. Baxter hid the fence of the enclosure with a curtain of brushwood, and in the same way he concealed the entrances of the hall and store-room. No one was allowed to show himself in the open between the lake and Auckland Hill.

And added to these difficulties there were now other causes of anxiety. Costar was ill of a fever, and in danger of his life. Gordon had to prescribe for him from the schooner's medicine-chest, not without some nervousness that he might make a mistake ! Luckily, Kate was quite a mother to the poor, sick boy. She watched over him with a painstaking affection, and nursed him night and day. Thanks chiefly to her, the fever left him, and he soon afterwards quite recovered.

During the first fortnight of November there were frequent showers, but on the 17th the barometer rose and steadied, and the warm season set in for good. Trees and shrubs and all the vegetation were soon covered with leaves and flowers. The customary visitors of South Moors returned in great numbers. Donagan was miserable at not being able to go out shooting across the marshes, and poor Wilcox was none the less so at not being able to spread his nets. And