e no servant skilled in handling a river boat."

"Ah--that!"

"A single man could manage your flat, provided you were willing to lend
a hand on occasion at steer-oar or pole--a few minutes, it might be,
once or twice a day. There are, as I have said, numbers of skilled
rivermen to be hired. But--" I paused as if to consider--"No. I could
bring you more than one for whose faithfulness I could vouch, but none
who is not foul-mouthed and--to a foreigner--insolent."

Shifting my gaze to the nearest flat, I waited in eager suspense. He
answered with a question: "Do I understand you to say that with my help
one man could guide so clumsy a craft?" I nodded, with assumed
carelessness. "And you are yourself skilled as a riverman, senor?" Again
I nodded. I could not trust myself to speak. He continued with polite
hesitancy: "Would you, then, think it odd, Dr. Robinson, if I requested
you to make the river journey with me?"

"Senor!" I cried, "it would give me great pleasure!"

"_Carambo!_" he muttered, at sight of my glowing face.

A moment's hesitancy would have lost me all the vantage I had gained. I
held my left hand level before me, and swept off the upturned palm with
my right. There are few of the Indian signs which do not pass current
from the lakes of the North and the swamps of the South to the most
remote of the tribes in the Far West. I was right in my surmise that
they were known even across the Spanish borders.

The senor bowed in quick apology: "A thousand pardons, Senor Robinson!"

"A man does not ride post-haste without expense," I said, with a
seriousness which was not all feigned.

"A thousand pardons!" he repeated. "My purse is at your disposal, Senor
Robinson. I do not speak in empty compliment. Such funds as you may
require--"

"_Muchas gracias!_" I broke in. "I have enough silver left to jingle in
my pocket. My thought was that it would be more agreeable to work my
passage with an acquaintance than with strangers. At this season it is
unusual for persons of culture to undertake the river trip. The voyage
is becoming quite the fashion among young gentlemen of means and
enterprise, but they seldom venture over the mountains before settled
weather, and the rivermen, as I have remarked, are not always the best
of company."

"Senor, no more! We share this voyage as fellow-travellers--my boat and
your skill. Is it not so?"

"Senor, my thanks!" I replied. "Yet first, there is the question of
Senorita