No friendly animals or piping forest songsters chirruped a cheerful welcome to this scene of desolation. Only the solitary "widow bird" hopped about hunting for insects and piping her mournful little note. Then the sound of a curlew, like the gasp of a dying child, came to them through the dawn, as the sun rose, red and pitiless, over the sands. Beyond these were the mountains, rising straight up against the sky. Huge gray boulders made a wall at the base of the ridge and the whole place seemed so strange and eerie that Jean cried out, "Oh, Kadok, we don't have to cross these sands, do we? I'm afraid." "No, Missa," said Kadok wearily. His foot was hurting him cruelly and he felt discouraged. "We go another way, all through the wood. Missa not feel 'fraid. Where Missa's Baiame? Take care of black boy, not take care of white child?" "Yes, indeed He will," said Jean, feeling ashamed that the black boy should preach to her. "But I can't help being afraid. It seems as if we would never get to mother." "Little Missa get there some day, but Kadok not know how soon. Think best way now to hunt for road and Missa go long quick for herself. Kadok foot not let him go very fast." "Well, I think I won't," said Jean indignantly. "Do you suppose I'd do that when you have been so good to me? We'll go as slowly as you have to and I'll take care of your foot. I'm terribly hungry, Kadok, can we eat now?" "Not eat here," said Kadok, who liked the place as little as she did. "Walk little more round edge of sand, there find water-hole in the woods and eat." So they trudged on in silence for another hour, gradually leaving behind them the sandy scrub and coming to a pleasant wood where a carpet of maiden-hair and coral fern reached knee-deep in tenderest green. Velvet-brown tree ferns rose in the air, wearing a feathery coronet of fronds, and above them grew the sassafras and the myrtle. A thousand sweet scents were wafted through the air and a bubbling stream surprised them by gushing forth from a clump of bushes. "Little Missa rest and eat here," said Kadok. "Plenty water," as he explored the banks. "Oh, Kadok, how lovely it looks," she cried. "I'd like to bathe in that water, it's so clear and nice." "Very good thing," said the boy. "Kadok make eat, Little Missa go to the bushes let water run all over self. Keep her from being thirsty all day while we walk."