23

The next morning, Jane departed on her friendly mission. She found it very solitary to be alone in the wilderness. During the night, the little animals of the forest seemed to sport at her situation. They ran about her bed and the birds made a screeching noise.¹ She did not sleep well. She proceeded as soon as she could see again each morning, and the going was always difficult. There were no trails, at least none that she could find, so that she crawled through brush and under fallen trees—sometimes over—and was almost swimming in the vegetation. After several days, her clothes were completely dismantled, her trousers torn off above the knees. Her shoes were gone, and she bound pieces of plastic from water bottles around her feet to protect them from rocks and thorns.² The scenery was truly romantic and delightful, but there was no sign of the Vacationers.³

It rained heavily, and kept raining so that Jane began to despair. Thus far she had driven herself onward by force of will and never allowed the possibility that she was wrong in her friendly mission. But now the doubts assailed her. How could a lone woman, who knew nothing of the wilderness, hope to find these denizens of the island? What if they killed her? What if they really were extinct? A woman less arrogant than Jane would have given up. Jane, however, could not imagine returning to the colony empty-handed. She kept walking, and it kept raining.

But, because the region was so romantic, she naturally came upon the Vacationers moving through a ravine below her. There were as many as a dozen adults, and one or two children. They had three little dogs with them of the cur breed.⁴ They were therefore not defunct.⁵

Jane’s feelings at this time were intense.⁶

She went in quest of them, but they immediately fled.⁷ The affection of these Vacationers was striking: one man took the two little boys and dove with them into the thick scrub, crawling on his hands and knees.⁸ They had doubtless heretofore been betrayed by the Penists, which made them cautious., and they quickly vanished from her sight. For you see, this was the first time that any Penist had visited them for the avowed purpose of doing them good.⁹ Jane proceeded on.¹⁰