The first day was spent huddled in a thicket of the towering green reeds. Determined not to be caught out in the open muck or water by one of the flying enemy during daylight, Hiero had hacked a careful way into the reeds which he thought unlikely to be seen from above. By the time the sun was fully up, they were well hidden in the heart of the reeds, but little more, if any, comfortable than if they had been in the open. It was a cloudless morning, and the August sun grew steadily hotter as the day advanced. The mosquitoes, shunning the light, were overjoyed to find helpless targets buried deep in the shade and attacked in new armies. Minute gnats and crawling bugs, mercifully absent during the hours of darkness, joined the onslaught and helped make them all miserable. As if that were not enough, the leeches, too, emerged from the water and, suckers waving, inched onto the three at every chance.
The man cut what he could spare from his own mosquito net and managed to rig crude muzzle screens for the two tortured beasts so that they could at least breathe in comfort without inhaling clouds of flying, stinging pests. Beyond plastering themselves with as much mud as possible, there was little else they could do. At least, Hiero thought, there was no water shortage. Where the pools were not churned up or too shallow, he had found the water to be perfectly clean and needing only to be strained once to remove insects and other vermin before being added to his canteens.
Food was another matter. There was some grouse, quite a lot of pemeekan, and even more of the biscuit left in the saddlebags, but he was aware that it really ought to be saved as much as possible. The morse would simply have to be allowed to feed before they started the night’s journey; there was certainly enough succulent vegetation growing in or near the water. But what could the poor bear do but eat the dwindling rations along with himself? Aha! Aha!
He fumbled quickly in the near saddlebag, momentarily forgetting the insects and the cloying heat. Sure enough, the fishing equipment was still in its case. Let’s see now, he thought, can I reach the water from here with a throw?
Carefully tying a shiny, weighted lure to the gut line, he threw it out into the channel which ran, brown and turbid, a few yards from the mouth of the tunnel he had carved for them in the roadbed.
On the third cast, a violent tug signified some luck; and soon a fat, striped fish, a perch of some unknown sort, he thought, weighing about three pounds, was flapping its tail on the packed mud bank. Before his luck ran out, he had caught two more of them. He gave one to Gorm, who fell upon it and seemed to find it excellent. The other two he cleaned and scaled, packing one away for later and eating one now himself. He had eaten raw fish many times before, and examination showed these not to be infested with worms, as was sometimes the case. Certainly lighting a fire would be the absolute height of folly, knowing that the heavens were no longer free of inimical eyes. He ate one of the dry biscuits with the fish and a small lump of
