passage which the little steamer should
take.

'We should not be far from La Dorada now,' said Toffy, steering between
the lines of stakes; 'but I can't see any signs of the steamer in this
blackness.'

In the daytime the river was a pale mud-colour and very thick and
dirty-looking. The moon came out for a moment and showed it like a
silver ribbon between the grey banks.

'Easy all!' said Toffy, sniffing the air. 'We must be near the
canning-factory at La Dorada.'

The horrible smell of the slaughter-house was borne to them on the
river, and there were some big corrals close by the water, and a small
wharf.

'It reminds me,' thought Toffy, 'of the beastly beef-tea which I have
had to drink all my life.'

'Good heavens!' cried Ross, 'they are firing the wharf! Purvis's
chances are small if this is their game.'

There was not very much to burn; the wood of the wharf kindled easily,
and the wheat burned sullenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke.

'Steer under the bank,' said Peter. 'We don't want to be seen.'

Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the mud would allow, and as
the wood of the wharf burned more brightly he could see some men
running to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then making off
farther down the river.

'They 'll fire the steamer next!' said Peter, and then bent his back to
the oar, and the boat swung away into the middle of the stream again.

The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it does just before the
dawn: it was baffling in its intensity, and seemed to press close.

'Way enough!' sang out Toffy, for quite unexpectedly the little
steamer, tied to a stake in midstream, loomed up suddenly before them.
The men shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught hold one of
the fender-ropes.

'Are you there?' he called up to the deck from the impenetrable
darkness.

As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little gangway, dressed
in his clerkly suit and stiff hat.

'You are just in time,' he said in his thin, high voice, without a
trace of excitement in it. 'When the light dawns they will find their
boats, and even now we may have to run for it.'

'Get on board,' said Ross roughly, 'and don't waste time.'

'I can't sink my steamer,' said Purvis quietly, 'in this shallow part
of the river, and I haven't the means of blowing her up; but I shall
now go below and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and all
that is in it will not be very long in