“We’ll have to find or build a shelter,” remarked Sahwah, thrusting her head, turtle like, from under the edge of the canoe and scanning the heavens with a calculating eye.  “This is a regular three days’ rain.  Who wants to come with me and see if we can find a cave?  I have an idea there must be one among the rocks on the hillside just farther on.  Who wants to come with me?”

“I’ll come!” cried Hinpoha and Jo and Agony and Katherine all in a breath.  Cramped from lying still so long, they welcomed the prospect of exercise, even in the early morning rain.

Leaving Migwan and Gladys to keep Miss Amesbury company, the five set out into the streaming woods, and Katherine and Hinpoha and Sahwah came back half an hour later to report that they had found a cave and Jo and Agony had stayed there to build a fire.

“Fire, that sounds good to me,” remarked Gladys, shivering a little as she got into her damp bathing suit and drew her heavy sweater over it.

Carrying the beds, still wrapped up in the ponchos, the little procession wound through the woods under the guidance of the returned scouts.  The guides were not needed long, however, for soon a heart warming odor of frying bacon came to meet them, and with a world-old instinct each one followed her nose toward it.

“Did anything ever smell so good?” exclaimed Hinpoha, breathing in the fragrant air in long drawn sniffs.

“Those blessed angels!” was all Miss Amesbury could say.

A moment later they stepped out of the wet woods into the cheeriest scene imaginable.  In the side of a steep hill which rose not far from the river there opened a good sized cave, and just inside its doorway burned a bright fire, lighting up the interior with its ruddy glow.  On a smaller fire beside it a pan of bacon was sizzling merrily, and over another hung a pot of steaming coffee.  To the eyes of the wet, chilly campers, it was the most beautiful scene they had ever looked upon.  They sprang to the large fire and toasted themselves in its grateful warmth while they held up their clothes to dry before putting them on.

“Thoughtful people, to build us an extra fire,” said Miss Amesbury, stretching out luxuriously on the blanket Migwan had spread for her.

“We knew you’d want to warm up a bit,” replied Agony, removing the coffee pot from the blaze and beginning to pour the steaming liquid into the cups.

“How did you ever make a fire at all?” inquired Miss Amesbury.  “Every bit of wood must be soaked through.”

“We dug down into a big pine stump,” replied Agony, “or rather, Sahwah did, for I didn’t know enough to, and got us some dry chips to start the fire with, and then we kept drying other pieces until they could burn.  Once we got that big log started we were all right.  It’s as hot as a furnace.”

“What a difference fire does make!” said Miss Amesbury.  “What dreary, dispirited people we’d be by this time if it were not for this cheering blaze.  I’d be perfectly content to stay here all day if I had to.”