It was early morning, and the mist lay heavy upon the forest and on the bosom of the James. Landless and Patricia raked together the dying embers of their fire and heaped fresh wood upon them. The flames leaped up, warming their chilled bodies and filling the hollow that had been their camping place with a cheerful light, in which the moisture that clothed tree bole and fallen log and withered fern glistened like diamonds. Their breakfast of deer meat and broiled fish, nuts and a few late clusters of grape, with coldest water from a spring hard by, was eaten amidst laughter and pleasant talk. When they had lingered through it and when Landless had carefully extinguished their fire and had seen to the priming of his gun, they addressed themselves to their journey. A bowshot away was the river, and Patricia willed that they walk along its banks that they might see the white mist lift, and the silver flash of fish rising from the water, and the swoop of the kingfisher. Landless agreeing, they went down to the river, and standing upon a rocky spit of ground which ran far out into the stream, they looked down the misty expanse, then turned involuntarily and looked up. At that moment the fog lifted. "Ah!" cried Patricia, and shrunk back, cowering almost to the ground. Landless seized her in his arms and ran with her across the shingle and up the bank. Plunging into the woods he made for the little stream which flowed past their camping place, and entering the water, walked rapidly up it. "Did they see us?" Patricia asked in a low, strained voice. "I am afraid so." "They turned their boats towards the land. They are in the forest by now." "Yes." "And there is no doubt that they are the same. I saw the scarlet handkerchief upon the head of the mulatto." "Yes, they are the same." "They were such a little way from us. Oh, they may be upon us at any moment!" "We are in great danger," he answered gravely, "but it is not so imminent as that. They were nearly a mile above us, and they have to land, to hide their boats and to find our trail, all of which will take time. We may count on having an hour’s start of them, and we will do all in our power to increase it by breaking our trail as we are doing now. Then we cannot be many leagues from the falls, and the post below them, or we may stumble at any moment upon some Monacan village which will not need our urging to fly out against the Ricahecrians. Please God, we will win through them yet." Somewhat comforted, she lay within his arms without speaking until they left the stream, when he set her down, and giving her his hand, ran with her over the fallen leaves down the long aisles of the forest.