Somerset was still alive, and seated on the same bank from which we had both started, though at a point fifty yards farther down-stream. He was engaged in counting out damp Bank-of-England notes on his bare knee, and blowing occasional blasts down the barrel of his rifle, which had dragged him and itself to the bottom of the river before the current tossed them both back on the shore. [Illustration: A HALT AT TRINIDAD] The two days of rest at the ranch of Dr. Pazo had an enervating effect upon our mules, and they moved along so slowly on the day following that we had to feel our way through the night for several hours before we came to the hut where we were to sleep. Griscom and I had lost ourselves on the mountain-side, and did not overtake the others until long after they had settled themselves in the compound. They had been too tired when they reached it to do anything more after falling off their mules, and we found them stretched on the ground in the light of a couple of fluttering pine torches, with cameras and saddle-bags and carbines scattered recklessly about, and the mules walking over them in the darkness. A fire in the oven shone through the chinks in the kitchen wall, and showed the woman of the house stirring something in a caldron with one hand and holding her sleeping child on her hip with the other, while the daughters moved in and out of the shadow, carrying jars on their heads and bundles of fodder for the animals. It looked like a gypsy encampment. We sent Emilio back with a bunch of pine torches to find the pack-mules, and we could see his lighted torch blazing far up the trail that we had just descended, and lighting the rocks and trees on either side of him. There was only room for one of us to sleep inside the hut that night, and as Griscom had a cold, that privilege was given to him; but it availed him little, for when he seated himself on the edge of the bull-hide cot and began to pull off his boots, five ghostly feminine figures sat upright in their hammocks and studied his preparations with the most innocent but embarrassing curiosity. So, after waiting some little time for them to go to sleep again, he gave up any thought of making himself more comfortable, and slept in his boots and spurs.