t morning they steamed up the
river to Guayquil and he felt himself free.

To Panama was but a short run and the twenty-five dollars in gold that
he had to pay for his trip across the isthmus from there to Aspinwall,
left him almost penniless. At Aspinwall he found the same steamer on
which he had sailed from New York, the Crescent City, and he put up
his baggage for a passage home on her. No trouble was experienced in
making such an arrangement for the trip north, for as soon as the
Captain learned who he was and the straits he was in, he was received
with open arms and every attention paid him.

Eight days after, Paul stood in Broadway, New York, without a cent in
his pocket, instead of the hundreds of thousands he had anticipated
earning when he cast his fortunes with Peru. But he felt rich in the joy
of his mother and family, who welcomed him as it were from the grave.

Kiefer, who had gone south with him, succeeded in making his escape for
the mountains where he remained several years, collecting antiquities
and shipping them north. He died of consumption soon after his return to
the United States in 1889.

CHAPTER XX.

In less than a month after his return from South America, Boyton was in
St. Paul, Minnesota, ready to start on a voyage of one thousand and
eight miles down the Mississippi river to Cairo, this trip being
undertaken in order to complete the length of that river from source to
mouth. Though there were no adventures of extraordinary interest in this
voyage, it was the stormiest one he ever encountered; and he was
diverted on the way by two peculiar characters that accompanied him,
being almost continually provoked to mirth by the humorous incidents
which befell them. His companion was a celebrated German artist, Dr.
C., who was on his first visit to America, as a representative of
that famous publication, the Gartenlaube. The Doctor was a scholarly
gentleman, but being unacquainted with American characteristics, which
had been sadly misrepresented to him by some of his countrymen who were
inclined to joke, he had an exaggerated notion as to how he must dress
and act for such a trip as he was going to take. When he was at St.
Paul, he thought he was on the skirts of civilization and it behooved
him to appear in such a manner as not to be imposed on as a novice. So
when he was presented to Boyton, he was gaily attired in a buckskin
suit, with revolve