zodiac7 Feb 2004

You might consider another word for 'brook', since (here, at least) you can cross a brook in something like two steps. It makes the 'one step at a time' part a sound little overwrought.

Ditto for the shallow parts where rocks poke out of the water. If there are rocks poking out then why are they 'wading'? They could just step on the rocks that are poking out. It being a brook, they wouldn't need more than two rocks, maybe.

And while I'm at it, it's not exactly clear why they're risking freezing water to cross this brook anyway. It's not really a casual thing to cross a near-freezing river. You might add a one-line explanation: "Coming back to camp," or some such.

On the whole, the writing is good. You need to punctuate, and in lines like the rocks that 'poke' out of the water, you might consider better more poetic words. Write back if you can't think of any. Tchuss.