ose beside him. To
swim to her and proceed to push her before him toward the nearest bank
was an instinctive act with Dick; and he presently had the satisfaction
of grounding her on a small strip of shingly beach where there was a
slight back eddy. Then he looked about for the other two, and presently
caught sight of Phil, a little lower down, swimming slowly and
supporting Vilcamapata's apparently senseless form. Phil looked as
though he were rather in difficulties, so Dick at once plunged in again
and swam to his assistance, and ten minutes later all three of them were
ashore again, about a mile lower down the river than the spot where the
canoe had been beached.

"I'm afraid gramfer, here, is rather badly hurt," gasped Phil, as he and
Dick lifted the insensible form of the Peruvian to the top of the low
bank. "Evidently he has been dashed against a rock and stunned, if not
worse," he continued, pointing to a very ugly jagged wound in the right
temple, from which the blood was welling pretty freely. "I noticed, as
I drove past, that you had saved the canoe. Do you think you could
manage to go back and fetch her down, Dick? My case of medicaments is
in her--if the thwart to which it was lashed has not gone adrift--and I
should be very glad to have it just now. Dost thou mind; or art too
tired?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Dick. "Of course I'll go, with pleasure.
And you will be glad to hear that, so far at least as I could see, the
craft is not damaged at all. But of course her paddles are lost, except
the one that gramfer, there, has stuck to so tenaciously, so I must
borrow it from him." And he stooped down and, with some difficulty,
loosened the grip of the unconscious man's hand on the steering paddle,
which he had, no doubt unconsciously, retained in his grip ever since
the capsize. "I'll be back as quickly as possible," concluded Dick, as
he struck off into the bush that, just there, bordered the river.

He returned again in about half an hour, with the canoe intact, nothing
having been lost but the paddles, which were the only articles that
happened to have been loose in her when she capsized. With quick
fingers he cast loose the small medicine case which Phil had taken
ashore with him on the occasion of the ill-fated landing at Cartagena,
and which he had carried about with him ever since, carefully enwrapped,
like their powder horns, in portions of their shirts liberally smeared
with caoutchou