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more comfortable to cross with shoes on, but we soon had busters from walking in wet socks.

It was a hard day for all of us. An irritating rain had been falling since morning, and we shivered with cold. Flaca was the most pitiful. Now and then she stopped in her tracks, wet, cold, and miserable, and refused to go on. Karl had to kick her to get her going. Once, while we were crossing the river, she had gotten caught in the current and was swept almost out of sight. I went after her, letting the water carry me along too. I found her perched on a small rise on the riverbank. I went over to her, but she tried desperately to get away from me. She didn’t want any help. She just wanted to be left alone. I dragged her quite a way and then picked her up and walked back against the current to rejoin the others.

It was getting late. Karl decided it was time to stop for the night. We quickly set up camp a short distance from the riverbank. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and we got a fire going. Karl made a big pot of soup from rice and bits of smoked pork.

Marcus and Kevin, who had both brought a change of clothes, hung their wet clothes to dry by the campfire, but Karl and I had to dry our clothing while wearing it.

‘Don’t put your clothes too close to the fire,’ Karl said. ‘The threads wear out that way, and they’ll start falling apart at the seams.’

Before we fell asleep, Karl promised, ‘Tomorrow I’ll find some kind of game, for sure.’

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