h it
didn't. No 'casion to send anybody aloft. I'll take a seat in the stern
'n' mind the hellum. Guess that's all they is to be done."

"You dum paddywhack," he presently reopened, "what d'ye break yer paddle
for?"

"I didn't break it," yapped Sweeny indignantly. "It broke itself."

"Well, what d'ye say y' could paddle for, when y' couldn't?"

"I can paddle. I paddled as long as I had anythin' but a sthick."

"Oh, you dum landlubber!" smirked Glover. "What if I should order ye to
the masthead?"

"I wouldn't go," asseverated Sweeny. "I'll moind no man who isn't me
suparior officer. I've moindin' enough to do in the arrmy. I wouldn't go,
onless the liftinint towld me. Thin I'd go."

"Guess y' wouldn't now."

"Yis I wud."

"But they an't no mast."

"I mane if there was one."

This kind of babble Glover kept up for some minutes, with the sole object
of amusing and cheering Thurstane, whose extreme depression surprised and
alarmed him. He knew that the situation was bad, and that it would take
lots of pluck to bring them through it.

"Capm, where d'ye think we're bound?" he presently inquired. "Whereabouts
doos this river come out?"

"It runs into the Colorado of the West, and that runs into the head of the
Gulf of California."

"Californy! Reckon I'll git to the diggins quicker 'n I expected. Goin' at
this rate, we'll make about a hundred 'n' twenty knots a day. What's the
distance to Californy?"

"By the bends of the river it can't be less than twelve hundred miles to
the gulf."

"Whew!" went Glover. "Ten days' sailin'. Wal, smooth water all the way?"

"The San Juan has never been navigated. So far as I know, we are the first
persons who ever launched a boat on it."

"Whew! Why, it's like discoverin' Ameriky. Wal, what d'ye guess about the
water? Any chance 'f its bein' smooth clear through?"

"The descent to the gulf must be two or three thousand feet, perhaps more.
We can hardly fail to find rapids. I shouldn't be astonished by a
cataract."

Glover gave a long whistle and fell into grave meditation. His conclusion
was: "Can't navigate nights, that's a fact. Have to come to anchor. That
makes twenty days on't. Wal, Capm, fust thing is to fish up a bit 'f
driftwood 'n' whittle out 'nother paddle. Want a boat-pole, too, like
thunder. We're awful short 'f spars for a long voyage."

His lively mind had hardly dismissed this subject before he remarked: "Dum
cur'ous that towline breaking. I overhaul