Shortly after dinner the entire party set out for the village, which was, it seemed, only half a mile away, and would have been reached by Jackson and Howard had they chanced to go in the right direction.
Bill and Joe knew all the easiest routes across the wreckage, and led the newcomers by one, which, though not quite direct, yet involved the minimum of effort on Dorothy’s part. Nevertheless, progress was necessarily slow, and it took nearly an hour to go the so-called half mile.
When the village was sighted, it was evident that considerable pains had been taken to make it comfortable. A score of modern vessels, mostly steamers, of about the same phase of flotation had been pulled into place and so bound together as to constitute a solid mass. Over what had once been the interstices bet
