"There's no chance for a berth, I suppose, is there?" he asked, of a clerk, passing.

The clerk scanned him impudently.

"No, sir. Every berth was taken before we left New York."

"Then why did the company sell us tickets?"

"That, sir," said the clerk, with an irritating smile, "is none of my business." And he hurried away.

"Well, we might as well begin to rough it now as any time," remarked the Fremont man, after a keen look at the back of the retreating clerk. "We'll have to make our own way—and I reckon we can do it. Come on."

He shouldered ahead, Charley in his wake. The emerged aft, on the upper deck.

"Wait here a moment," bade the Fremont man; and abruptly left Charley on guard over the baggage. He returned in a minute or two.

"No berths," he reported. "I wanted to find out. Now I know. We can sleep in the steerage, they tell me. Huh! Not after we've paid extra for fresh air. Let me look around."

He did, surveying the crowded deck. Suddenly picked up the baggage.

"I see a spot," he said, and led the way.

Just outside the rail, over the stern was slung a large boat—one of the ship's life-boats. It hung by ropes to the davits, and was covered with a tarpaulin, or canvas, stretched over it and tied down.

The Fremont man halted, at the rail, and pitched the baggage over upon the boat.

"There we are," he said with a smile, to Charley. "Some of us can sleep on top—and if it rains I reckon we can double under. Go get your father, now, and I'll hold the fort."

Away hurried Charley—excited, and in his mind the idea that this was to be the queerest bed that he had occupied yet. But he had faith in the big Fremont man.

He took a look from the rail, to watch the dock below. Most of the passengers up here were crowded at this rail, to survey just as he was surveying. The stern had been left comparatively free. There was his father—he recognized the tall figure, and the limp—just arrived below, gazing about anxiously. Charley yelled, and waved, but he could not make himself heard or seen. Too much else was going on. So he raced down, and rushed out upon the dock.

"Come on, quick, dad," he greeted, breathless. "We've found a place!"

"Who?"

"The Fremont man and I. He found it, though."

"Did you get a berth?" panted his father, following him. "They told me at the steamship office that every berth was taken long ago. I had to fight for the tickets, even. Never saw such a mob."

"No, not a berth. But it's a place, anyhow. You'll see."

In the short space of time the upper deck had grown more populous than ever. They worked their way through the crowd, Charley eagerly looking ahead for the Fremont man at his post.

"This is awful," spoke Mr. Adams. "The steamship company ought to be brought to law about it."

"There he is," directed Charley, gladly. "See him. We've got the life-boat!"

But perhaps they hadn't, for when they arrived, the Fremont man was calmly barring the way of three other men—among them the long-nosed man, who was doing most of the arguing on their part.

"No, gentlemen, you're too late," asserted the Fremont man, thrusting them back with his rifle-barrel held crosswise. "That boat's occupied."

Charley remembered to have seen the little gang much together, on the Georgia, drinking and gambling. They were a tough lot.

"Tell that to the marines," retorted the long-nosed man. "We'll have that boat, or we'll know a better reason than you're giving."

"Reason enough, and here's my proof," quoth the Fremont man. "The boat's pre-empted by us three. You must hunt another claim."

Mr. Adams promptly stepped forward, to the Fremont man's side.

"What's this about?" he demanded.

"Oh, it's you again, is it—you and your kid!" snarled the long-nosed man. "You're chalking up another score to settle, are you?" And, to his fellows: "What do you say, boys? Shall we throw them overboard?"

"Over they go," announced one of the other men—a thin sallow, drooping-moustached kind—with marvelous swiftness whipping from under his coat breast a fifteen-inch blade bowie-knife.



Charley's heart leaped into his throat with horror. He wanted to spring to his father's side, but his legs would not work. However, the affair was settled very easily. The Fremont man quickly handed his rifle to Mr. Adams, grabbed the long-nosed Jacobs, in bear-like grip, and fairly threw him into the man with the knife. Together the pair went down in a heap, almost knocking over several of the onlookers.

"You next," declared the Fremonter, with a jump at the third of the gang—who hastily recoiled, in alarm. So did the onlookers. So did the two men who were scrambling to their feet again. The Fremont man had proved as quick and as strong as a gorilla. Now he laughed grimly.

"Come on," he invited. "Come on with your knives or anything else that you have. But we won't go overboard just yet. We can't swim!"

The three fellows didn't "come on," worth a cent. The one with the knife hung back farthest of all. They sputtered and glared, a little uncertain just what to do with a man so energetic and fearless as the Fremont man.

"All right, boys," snarled the long-nosed man. "There's more than one way to deal with 'em. We don't want trouble. We're peaceable citizens. But if that boat doesn't belong to us, it doesn't belong to anybody." And he threatened, to the Fremont man and Charley's father: "In about five minutes we'll settle your hash."

With that he turned, and he and his two companions shouldered their way brusquely through the crowd.

The Fremont man laughed again.

"Fists are the only weapons needed with gentry of that class," he said, contemptuously. "Bah! I think more of Digger Injuns."

Some of the onlookers nodded and murmured assent. The half circle that had been attracted by the dispute broke up. Nobody had tried to interfere, even when the knife had been drawn. Charley soon found that similar contests for sleeping places were occurring everywhere aboard. It was a grand free-for-all rush.

Mr. Adams gave Charley an assuring nod, as if to say: "Here's a man who knows what to do and how to do it"; and he remarked, quietly, to their friend: "Thanks to you, I guess we're rid of that trouble."

"And easily rid, too," answered the Fremont man; he composedly reached for his rifle, leaned it against the rail, and standing on the bench running inside the rail began to rearrange the baggage on the canvas covering of the boat.

But he was interrupted, for there came in a hurry a ship's officer, as if sent by the long-nosed man.

"Here! Take your things off that boat," he ordered. "You can't use that boat. It's a life-boat."

"Where are we to stow ourselves, then?" queried Mr. Adams, at once.

"I don't know. But you can't use that boat."

"Will you give us a berth in place of it?"

"No, sir," informed the officer, crisply.

"We've got to have some place for ourselves and our personal baggage, sir," declared Mr. Adams. "Our tickets entitle us to a berth. We're doing the best we can, to keep from littering the deck; but if you insist on imposing further we'll carry the matter to Government authority and see whether we were not sold tickets under false pretenses."

The officer hesitated. Clearly, these three passengers knew how to stand up for themselves. He decided to let well enough alone.

"You occupy the boat at your own risk, then," he snapped. "The company does not hold itself liable. Understand that?"

"Perfectly."

The officer turned on his heel, and left them in possession.

"That settles us, I reckon," quoth the Fremont man, springing lightly down. "It's our claim."



V

AN ATTACK BY THE ENEMY

The Georgia pulled out that very evening instead of lying over until morning; and it was rumored that even with this hasty start there would be barely time enough for the passengers to catch the Pacific Mail steamship at Panama, for San Francisco.

Mr. Adams and the Fremont man (whose name was Grigsby) stayed by the baggage until the steamer sailed; but Charley wandered about the decks, "seeing things." And there was plenty to see. The Georgia seemed to be a fine boat. She had three decks, all crowded. The upper deck was for the first-cabin passengers, who paid the highest fare, and were supposed to have special privileges of table and state-rooms. The pilot-house was forward, and so were the rooms of the captain and first officers. The second deck contained the large dining cabin, with state-rooms on either side of it for the other officers and the second-cabin passengers. Down below, on the first deck, where the portholes were often under water, in a large room with rude bunks in tiers along the sides were crowded the steerage passengers. Here they ate and slept, all together. On this deck, forward, were housed the crew; and some steerage passengers overflowed into the forward end of the second deck.

Dusk was settling when the Georgia emerged from the broad mouth of the Mississippi into the Gulf. At the same time a bugle blew for supper—and what a scramble there was! The first-cabin passengers were to eat first, while the second-cabin must wait. As for the steerage passengers, Charley afterwards found out that they were fed, a bunch at a time, from a board platform slung from the ceiling by ropes, behind a railed partition. Enough were admitted by the stewards to fill the enclosure; when they had eaten out of the tin dishes supplied with stew and beans, etc., from dirty kettles, another hungry company were let through.

Almost before the bugle signal had done ringing, the first-cabin tables were crowded, and passengers were standing behind the chairs, waiting impatiently for those seated to quit and get up. The long-nosed man and his two cronies had been smart, or else they had bullied their way, for they already were eating when, too late, Charley and his father arrived. Saying, good-naturedly, "I guess I'll stand guard while you fellows eat," Mr. Grigsby had remained by the boat.

"We'll wait a bit, ourselves," spoke Mr. Adams, to Charley, as they caught sight of the turbulent dining-room.

The scene was amusing, and also irritating. It seemed to Charley as though they would never find a place. Every time anybody got up, somebody immediately popped into the vacated chair. Charley began to be alarmed lest the supply of food would run short.

"Take the first chance that comes, now," bade his father. "I'll go up and send Mr. Grigsby down as soon as you're started, so you can mount guard while I eat. I'll be watching our friends the enemy."

Charley pushed forward, and presently he himself popped into a place. The long-nosed man and his two partners had leisurely finished and were strolling out—the man with the bowie-knife using it as a tooth-pick! But Charley knew that his father and Mr. Grigsby would watch them, so he pitched into the food. It was a case of everybody reaching and grabbing. Charley only wished that he had longer arms.

Just as he was midway Mr. Grigsby came down to a seat; and soon up ran Charley, to release his father. Now was he on guard, alone, ready to do his best if anybody tried to seize the boat; but nobody did try. Meanwhile he might gaze about.

He saw funny sights, for the Georgia was rolling and tossing in the waves of the Gulf. It affected the passengers very oddly. They were all kinds, these passengers, both first-cabin and second-cabin—for the second-cabin passengers were allowed on the upper deck, although not to sleep. A great many were Southerners, including a number of long, lank, dark Arkansans, Georgians, Louisianans and Mississippians. Pistols and knives were plentiful, although notices, posted about the ship, said, plainly: "The Wearing of Deadly Weapons Aboard this Ship is Forbidden." For that matter, another notice said: "Passengers Are Requested to Wear their Coats at Meals." But nobody obeyed either notice.

There were only a few women, among the first- and second-cabin passengers; the steerage contained the most women, accompanying their emigrant husbands and sons. However, Southerners and Northerners, and the men like the women, many of the passengers were beginning to act very queerly.

They clustered along the rail, leaning over and hanging to it as they leaned; they sat down, against the rail, and against the state-rooms; and soon a lot were lying sprawled, with their eyes closed. Most of these had come aboard at New Orleans, probably. The brisk ones had been aboard already, from the North. Charley was wickedly pleased to see the long-nosed man stretched limp, and greenish in the face, while his two companions meanly teased him. And then, as Charley's father and Mr. Grigsby appeared, Charley began to feel queer, himself.

The ship sank down, down, down—then she rose up, up, up; and which was the worse sensation he could not tell. Either one was the worse, while it was happening!

"I—believe—I'll—go to bed," faltered Charley.

"Pshaw! You are looking kinder green," said Mr. Grigsby, surveying him.

"Feel sick, Charley?" queried his father.

Charley's actions spoke louder than words, for suddenly he was at the rail getting rid of his hard-earned supper. When he tottered back, already his father was spreading quilt and blanket against the rail behind which hung the boat.

"I guess you had better turn in," he directed, to Charley. "You'll be more comfortable on the deck than on the boat. Besides, I suppose that Jacobs gang wouldn't hesitate to cut the boat and let it drop, if they had the chance."

Charley crawled upon the bed. He was so miserable that really he didn't care whether anybody cut the boat down or not.

"Do you think I'll get well again?" he groaned.

His father and Mr. Grigsby laughed as if this were a joke.

"Why, sure," declared the Fremont man. "But I know how you feel. When I was in California in Forty-six a lot of us Fremont men were sent down from Monterey to San Diego by boat. Every one of us was laid flat, and Kit Carson was the sickest of all! He vowed he'd rather cross the desert a hundred times than take another sea voyage."

Charley did not open his eyes again till morning. When he did open them he was feeling much better. He sat up, and decided that he was going to be all right. The ship was still pitching up and down, and was out of sight of land. The deck was littered with sick people lying in all postures, and some cattle that had been taken aboard at New Orleans, for beef, were lowing wretchedly as if they, too, were sick. No doubt they were.

There was not much difficulty in getting a seat at breakfast this morning, for some of the passengers who had come down from the North were ill a second time. When Charley was picking his way to the dining cabin he stumbled on somebody, and looking down he beheld the long-nosed man. But the long-nosed man did not even notice that he was being stepped on. Charley chuckled. Mr. Jacobs in such shape need not be feared.

That day they were not interfered with, in their possession of the boat. Charley had the fun of sleeping on its canvas covering, that night, where, all alone, he swung delightfully as in a great cradle, while the stars shone down upon him, and the spray from the paddle wheels occasionally drifted across his face. His father and Mr. Grigsby seemed to prefer the deck, against the rail.

The voyage down to the Isthmus was rated at seven days from New Orleans. By the third day most of the sea-sick passengers had recovered, and everybody settled to enjoy themselves. A number of gamblers and drinkers were aboard; these kept to the main cabin, where they sat at cards, robbing whomsoever they might, or stood at the bar and guzzled quantities of liquor. On the decks the main pastime was reading California travels like Fremont's explorations, or Richard Dana's splendid "Two Years Before the Mast"—which Charley knew almost by heart; or in speculating on "How much gold can I dig in a day?" That was the favorite question: "How much gold do you suppose a fellow can dig in a day?" The calculations ran all the way from $100 to $10,000.

An awning was stretched over the upper deck, for shade; and as the Georgia sped out of the Gulf and headed south for the Yucatan Channel under the Tropic of Cancer, between Cuba and Yucatan, the shade felt mighty good. A number of passengers got out their white suits of linen or cotton; but the majority of the Forty-niners stuck to their flannel shirts and coarse trousers and boots.

The third evening they crossed the Tropic of Cancer, and by night were entering the Yucatan Channel, which led to the famous Caribbean Sea where pirates used to lurk. The long-nosed man and his partners had not again bothered Charley and his two partners. They had kept below, most of the time, in the main cabin, with other roisterers, and it began to look as if they had decided to let the Adams party alone.

Charley continued to sleep on the boat, swinging over the stern of the steamer, between sky and sea. Here in the tropics the days were subject to sudden sharp squalls of rain; and Mr. Grigsby unfastened the edge of the canvas covering of the boat, so that he could stow the bedding underneath, when not in use. In case of rain at night, Charley could crawl under, also, and cuddled between the seats might sleep snug and dry. Mr. Grigsby had been pretty smart, to seize on that boat when he did, for the awning leaked, in spots, and many of the passengers found themselves getting wet.

From the Yucatan Channel the Georgia crossed off the mouth of the large Honduras River, which opened into the Gulf of Honduras, on the line between Mexico and Central America. The shore of Honduras could be faintly seen, on the right, and around the course cropped up wondrous coral keys with snow-white beaches, and tufty palms outlined against the blue sky. The water was a beautiful green.

That was all very nice, and now the Isthmus of Panama was only two days ahead, across the Caribbean Sea; but the report spread that the barometer was falling and a change in weather evidently was due. Toward evening the sailors tightened the awning and made things more secure, as if they were preparing for a storm. The sun set gorgeously crimson—an angry sun; the petrels, skimming the waves about the ship, twittered excitedly, and other sea-birds seemed hastening early for land.

"You'd better crawl under the canvas, to-night, Charley," bade his father. "We're liable to have rain."

"Where'll you sleep, then?" asked Charley.

"Oh, on the deck with Mr. Grigsby. We'll find a dry spot."

Mr. Adams, as a soldier, had slept out many a night before—yes, and in many a storm; but Charley was fond of his quarters in his own private nest. He liked to cuddle there and hear the rain patter on the canvas close above him, while the waves talked beneath him, and the great paddles whirred and thumped. Under the canvas covering he gladly slipped, and got in an exceedingly comfortable position there.

He fell asleep soon and soundly—and he awakened to a storm indeed. The wind was moaning and swishing, the spray was pelting the bottom of the boat like shot, the rain was pouring in a perfect deluge, with a steady, thunderous rhythm, and the boat swayed and shook as the big waves struck the steamer's sides. Underneath the canvas all was pitch dark. At first Charley was a little bewildered and frightened; but after a few minutes he settled back to enjoy himself. He rather pitied the folks trying to sleep dry on deck; and he wondered how it was faring with his father and Mr. Grigsby.

He could hear hoarse orders to the sailors, and hasty tread of feet, forward; and calls and exclamations among the passengers. Then there was a heavy weight almost on top of him, sagging the canvas, the canvas was torn aside a little way, and he struggled to sit up, in alarm. Maybe they were to launch the life-boat. But no——

"It's all right, Charley. Lie still," spoke his father's voice. "I'm only coming in with you, out of the rain. Don't move. Whereabouts are you?"

"In the stern. Did you get wet?"

"Some. The whole awning leaks and the cabin and every other shelter are full of people. Whew, but it's dark, isn't it! No lightning, even. If you're in the stern, I'll take the bow. There. This is fine."

The canvas had been pulled snug again, and Charley could feel his father crawling to the bow.

"Where's Mr. Grigsby? There's room for him, too."

"He's found a dry spot, he says. So he'll stay out, as long as he can. Go to sleep, now."

Charley tried. He heard his father settle himself with a grunt, and presently begin to breathe in a little snore. That was good, for his father was not well, yet, and ought to be resting. But Charley himself found it hard work to go to sleep. The wind soughed, the spray pelted, the rain hammered, and the ship staggered and quivered, while over the stern swayed the boat.

Suddenly, amidst the voices outside, along the deck, Charley caught a quick outcry near at hand, and a scuffle—the scrape of feet, and the thump of a body falling. The tones were those of Mr. Grigsby.

"What are you doing? Stand back!" Hard breathing—and the sound of a short struggle. "Now, be off—none of that, or I'll put a hole through you! You dirty scoundrels! Thought you'd catch us, did you? Keep away, after this, or I'll shoot on sight."

Charley attempted to sit up, and scraped his face on the low canvas. His movement aroused his father.

"What's the matter, Charley?"

"I don't know. Mr. Grigsby was scolding somebody."

"What's going on, Grigsby?" hallooed Mr. Adams. "Anything wrong?"

"No, not now. Go to sleep. Tell you in the morning."

"Need me?"

"Not a bit. It's all over with. Just a prowler—and he won't come again. Go to sleep."

"Well——" assented Mr. Adams. "Are you dry?"

"Dry as powder. Good-night."

"Good-night. But you'd better come in with us. Plenty of room."

"No, thank you. I'm comfortable."

Mr. Adams settled himself. Charley, his heart beating, waited, listening. But Mr. Grigsby spoke not again. The rain was lessening, too—and although the seas continued to pound, and the wind to sough, the storm seemed to be ceasing. Presently Charley dozed off, and when he awakened, it was morning. His father already had left, for he was not in the bow under the canvas. Charley hastily crawled out, into sunshine and a wide expanse of blue under which a gray green ocean tossed its racing white-caps.

The passengers on the upper deck were astir, spreading out wet clothing and bedding, to hang them from the awning and the rails to dry. Charley's father and Mr. Grigsby were talking earnestly together, but checked themselves when they saw Charley emerge, and land on deck.

"Morning to you," greeted Mr. Grigsby. "Did you sleep well?"

"Fine," said Charley. "Did you? What was the matter in the night?"

"Yes; you can count on me to sleep in any kind of weather," answered Mr. Grigsby. And—"Shall we tell him?" he queried, of Mr. Adams.

Mr. Adams, who looked a little worried, nodded.

"Yes," he replied. "We might as well. He's one of us."

"The truth is," resumed Mr. Grigsby, to Charley, "one of those three fellows tried to cut the boat down, in the night. But I caught him. Here's his knife."

"Which one was it?" gasped Charley, cold at the thought.

"Jacobs," said his father. "And lucky for us that he didn't do it. Mr. Grigsby has a sharp ear. Why, we wouldn't have lasted a minute in that sea. Now, wasn't that a cowardly thing even to think of?"

"I'd feared it," admitted Mr. Grigsby. "But it didn't seem possible, in any human being. Last night was a good night for it—and I suppose the davits would have looked as though the boat had been torn loose by a sea. Whew! I ought to have shot the scoundrel without parleying."

"What'll we do about it?" quavered Charley, sitting down hard on the bench. He felt weak.

"It's all over with, so don't be scared, boy," encouraged his father. "A miss is as good as a mile, you know. We're safe, after this. Oh, Mr. Grigsby and I've decided there's little to be done. Of course, here's the knife for evidence, and we'll speak to the captain; but there's nothing else to do. We have to look out for ourselves."

After breakfast Mr. Adams brought aft, not the captain, but the first mate. He was the same official who had objected to their using the boat at all.

"So you think somebody was bent on cutting that boat down, do you?" he queried, brusquely, of Mr. Grigsby.

"I don't think so; I know it," returned Mr. Grigsby.

"How do you know it?"

"Because I knocked him down and took his knife."

"Do you know who it was?"

"His name is Jacobs."

"You can prove that, can you?"

"To my own satisfaction; yes."

"Well, I suppose you are aware that there are over a thousand passengers aboard this boat, and several hundred have knives just like that one. You can prove nothing. I told you in the beginning that you occupied this boat at your own risk. So don't bring your complaints forward. But if any damage is done to this boat you'll be held responsible."

So speaking, the first mate turned on his heel and left. Charley saw his father flush angrily, but Mr. Grigsby only laughed.

"Let him go," he said. "We can do our own fighting."

A passenger standing near evidently had overheard the conversation, for he asked, quietly:

"Do I understand somebody tried to cut your boat down, last night?"

"Yes, sir."

"His name was Jacobs, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I heard that scuffle, and I've been wondering about it. So the ship won't do anything about it, according to the mate?"

"No, sir."

"Then I know who will," asserted the man—a quick, erect, middle-aged man with grayish moustache and goatee. He wore miner's costume, but he looked like a gentleman, nevertheless. "Wait a bit."

He, too, left. Gazing after him as he passed along the deck under the awning, they noted him pause and speak with several other men, who glanced back at the stern as if he was telling them about the boat. A little group of them accompanied him, and disappeared with him.

Soon they all came up on deck again, and with them was Mr. Jacobs himself. Charley thought that he looked rather frightened, as in their midst he moved aft. The group was swelled, en route, until when they halted before the Adams party they numbered about twenty—a sober, stern lot, standing in a determined manner with Mr. Jacobs pushed to the fore.

The man with the goatee acted as spokesman.

"This is the man, is it?" he asked, of Mr. Grigsby.

"I wouldn't call him a man," said Mr. Grigsby, contemptuously. "But he's the critter I referred to."

Mr. Jacobs scowled blackly at Charley, and his father, and Mr. Grigsby, and tried to brazen it out. However, 'twas plain to be seen that he was ill at ease.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded, all around. "What did you bring me up here for?"

"You're accused of attempting to cut that boat down, last night, along with the persons who were in it," answered the man with the goatee.

"Who accuses me?"

"I do," said Mr. Grigsby, shortly.

"It's a lie," retorted the long-nosed man, with an oath. "I wasn't up here. I was down below, keeping dry."

"Here's your knife," pursued Mr. Grigsby, holding it out.

The long-nosed man laughed sneeringly.

"Not my knife. I don't carry one. Besides, the ship's full of knives like that."

"Yes," said Mr. Grigsby. "But it isn't full of dogs like you! If you weren't up here last night, how did you get that bruised cheek, and those finger-marks on your throat? You look powerful like somebody who'd been knocked down and held for a while."

"It's a lie," repeated the long-nosed man, but rather weakly. He braced up. "Of course it's a lie," he appealed, to the group. "Isn't my word as good as his?"

The man with the goatee laughed grimly—and so did several others.

"Your word? It's about the poorest security you can offer. Why, you're nothing but a common gambler and a thug. You're one of those rascals who've been fleecing people down in the cabin. Just yesterday you robbed a man of his last cent by cheating him at cards. Faugh! Some of us have been watching you, and we know all about you. I wouldn't put it at all beyond you to cut down a boat, in the night, and drop it, with a man and a boy sleeping in it. Well, gentlemen," and he addressed the group, "soon or late we'll have to organize a little law and order committee, for protection in the gold fields, and I suppose we might as well begin right here. What'll we do with this specimen?"

"Throw him overboard!" came the angry response.

"String him up!"

"We'd better talk it over, first, hadn't we?" proposed a more cautious voice.

"All right. Somebody guard the prisoner."

"I'll watch him," proffered Mr. Grigsby, significantly handling his rifle.

The group withdrew a short distance, to confer apart, leaving the long-nosed man in a clear space before Mr. Grigsby. A number of other passengers had been attracted by the scene, but they stood at a respectful distance, saying nothing.

The long-nosed man glared alike at Charley, his father, and Mr. Grigsby, but he was afraid to move.

"You'll pay for this," he said, loudly. "It's a scheme to get rid of me, is it, and take my share in that gold mine you're making for? But it won't work. These passengers won't see an innocent man suffer." And so forth, and so forth, while Mr. Grigsby and Mr. Adams answered never a word—and neither, of course, did Charley. He rather hoped that, after all, the group would decide not to handle the long-nosed man roughly, even though he was a dangerous person.

Mr. Jacobs evidently was nervous despite his bragging; and when the group advanced again, he turned pale.

The man with the goatee spoke, first addressing Mr. Grigsby and Mr. Adams.

"While we believe the accused guilty and deserving of being put into safe keeping, some of us don't think the evidence that he was cutting down the boat conclusive enough to warrant us in dealing with him as we'd like to. As for you," he continued, now sternly addressing the long-nosed man himself, "we give you this warning. Don't show yourself on the upper deck again, and don't sit at cards with anybody. If we catch you up here, or gambling anywhere aboard, we'll relieve the ship of your society very quickly. Now go."

Still pale, the long-nosed man hastened away, and went below. The next time Charley saw him was on the Isthmus of Panama.



VI

THE LANDING AT THE ISTHMUS

For the remainder of the voyage Charley slept on the deck instead of in the boat. He was not exactly afraid, and if anybody had dared him to he would have slept in the boat just to show that he wasn't afraid.

But the idea that the boat might be cut loose, or might break loose, was not pleasant. Ugh! Then down he would drop, boat and all, into the wash of the steamer; the steamer would go on without him—and where would he go?

Even Mr. Grigsby and his father, who were brave men, approved of his sleeping on deck, now. As Mr. Grigsby said:

"We know you aren't afraid, but it's only a fool who takes chances when they aren't necessary. Out in the Indian country the greenhorns were the fellows who played smart by sitting in the campfire light where the Injuns could get a good shot at them. Nobody ever saw Kit Carson exposing himself that way."

The Georgia was ploughing across the Caribbean Sea. Islands were constantly in view, but now no one paid much attention to these. All the passengers were on the lookout for the Isthmus of Panama; they were tremendously eager to get ashore and start across the Isthmus for the Pacific Ocean.

On the morning of the eighth day out of New Orleans a bank of rain or fog closed down on the horizon ahead. Off yonder was the Isthmus, but who could see it? However, evidently it was near; for when Charley roved about, he discovered that sailors were busy, below, hoisting out baggage from the hold. They were getting ready to land.

The news spread through the ship, and passengers immediately engaged in a wild rush to put their things together and crowd for the steps. They acted as though they expected to make a flying leap ashore as the ship passed by. Charley was glad to help his father and Mr. Grigsby tie up their belongings also, so as to be ready.

Here on the rolling Caribbean the sun was shining brightly, tinting the choppy waves with a beautiful green. The storm ashore was moving on, evidently, for the streaks of rain were drifting around to the left and passing out to sea, leaving the mist thin and white. Suddenly voices forward cried, excitedly: "Land ho! Land ho! There she is! Isthmus in sight! Land ho!" The cries spread, with everybody on tiptoe, peering. At one end of the mist line had been uncurtained a background of rocky, surf-washed shore, with high green hills rising behind it. Next was uncovered a lower shore, indented by a large bay, and fringed with palm-trees. Next, as on sped the mist (like a swiftly rolling curtain, indeed) there came into view a lofty headland, with trees on its crest and the waves dashing against its base.

The Georgia was swinging about in her course, and pointing up the coast. This brought the lofty headland on her left. And now all the deck was rife with questions.

"Where do we land?"

"What's that big point? Porto Bello?"

"The pirates captured it, didn't they, couple of hundred years ago?"

"Can you see the old fort on it?"

"How far's the Pacific Ocean, now?"

"Do we land in that big bay?"

"Don't think so. That's Limon Bay, isn't it? Where is Colon?"

"Colon is where the railroad's going to begin. We land at Chagres."

"Where is Chagres?"

"How far across to the Pacific at Panama?"

"About four days. Three by boat and one by mule, they say."

"Anything to eat at Chagres? Any sleeping place?"

"Don't know."

"Oh, Tom! How'll we engage a canoe? Ought to make up a party and send a man ashore at once, oughtn't we?"

Accompanied by this babel of cries, the Georgia steamed up along the shore. She passed the lofty headland, which seemed to guard a fine harbor; and she passed the big bay which people said was Limon. The shore looked very tropical, with its beaches and palms and green hills and thatched huts and glimpses of bright tinted towns, while behind rose the mountain range. Charley gazed spellbound.

"Say, where is Chagres?" were asking the passengers crowding along the inshore rail.

Yes, indeed; where was Chagres? The Georgia was supposed to land at the town of Chagres, which was at the mouth of the Chagres River, and the way to California then lay up the Chagres River, by canoe, as far as possible; over the mountains by mule, down to the Pacific Ocean at Panama; and aboard the Pacific Mail Company steamship there, for San Francisco.

"According to the map," said Mr. Adams, "Chagres is about eight miles up the coast from Limon Bay. I shouldn't wonder if we were turning in for it now."

Sure enough, the Georgia was beginning to point for the shore, which rose high and steep, seamed with darker lines that proved to be ravines running down to the sea. A narrow inlet opened in the shore; no, this was the mouth of a river—the Chagres River, said several voices.

"I see a castle," cried Charley. "It looks like a castle, anyway. On top of the cliff, above the river. Or maybe it's a fort."

"San Lorenzo castle, they call it, I believe," announced Mr. Grigsby.

Closer to the river's mouth and the castle above swept the Georgia. Her whistle sounded hoarsely. Still no town appeared; and to general disappointment, when about a quarter of a mile from shore, opposite the mouth of the river, she stopped her engines, there was a rattle of chains through the hawse holes, and she had dropped anchor! Almost immediately a boat pulled away from her, for the shore. It contained the captain and two or three other officials. They soon entered the mouth of the river and disappeared. The passengers, pressed against the rails on all the decks, their hand baggage ready, murmured irritably, but no other boats were launched and evidently it was not yet time for them also to go ashore.

"If you two will look after the baggage, I'll try to get ashore among the first and hire a boat," offered Mr. Adams.

"That's the best idea," approved Mr. Grigsby. "There won't be boats enough to go 'round, and somebody'll get left."

Charley saw his father shouldering his way through the crowd, to the head of the stairs, into which he made further way. He descended from sight. Down below he would have a harder time, for the crowd at the rails of the lower decks was thicker, where people had clustered hanging close so as to be in the first of the boats. But Mr. Adams could take care of himself, all right, whether lame or not. He had been in many a battle.

For a time there was nothing to do but gaze at the shore—at the old, crumbling Castle of San Lorenzo, where through glasses a few cannon could be descried; at the clumps of palms, standing like plumes; at the rolling green hills, bordering the shore, and at the distant mountain range which was to be crossed after the river had been ascended as far as possible. Beyond the mountains lay the Pacific Ocean, where, at the city of Panama, the steamer for California would be boarded by those who got there in time. Except for the dots of soldiers, surveying the Georgia from the walls of the fort, the only signs of life ashore were the thatched roofs of some huts, back among the trees.

In the course of an hour another murmur arose from the impatient passengers, for the ship's boat reappeared, issuing from the narrow mouth of the river—and with it was a much larger boat that soon turned out to be a big canoe, manned by half a dozen natives. Both boats headed for the ship. The canoe reached it first. It was a dug-out, fashioned from the single trunk of a tree; and its crew, wielding their paddles, were black as coals, their naked bodies streaming with perspiration. On their legs they wore white cotton trousers, loose and comfortable.

They halted amidships, under the steamer's rail, where while the thousand faces stared down at them they gestured and called up. All that Charley could understand were the words: "Go ahead!" They held up their fingers, opening them and closing them to indicate twenty, evidently. But the passengers could do nothing, although some of them almost jumped overboard in their excitement.

Now the ship's boat with the second mate in it hove alongside. The mate clambered up, by the rope ladder which was lowered for him and closely guarded. He made himself heard the best he could and the word speedily traveled fore and aft, on all the decks, that the canoe would take ashore twenty people, at once.

"And he says we've just time, if we start to-day, to catch the California at Panama," was reported.

What a hubbub resulted! Of course, every party aboard ship tried to place in the canoe their man who would engage a canoe, ashore, for the river trip. The tussle looked and sounded like a free-for-all fist-fight. Down the rope-ladder swarmed the picked men, each trying to out-elbow the others, and dropped recklessly into the dug-out. Two men jumped for the dug-out from the lower deck, and fell sprawling. Another sprang overboard, and climbed in, dripping. But Charley was relieved to see, among the lucky ones worming down the rope-ladder, his father. Hurrah for dad!

Mr. Adams was none too early. The boatmen were jabbering and dodging and shouting. Already the dugout was loaded with its twenty, but the rope-ladder was as full as ever. Out from the ship's side shoved the big canoe, its captain shaking his head vigorously at the passengers above and yelling: "No! No!" while his men began to ply their paddles.

Now there was a splash in the water, and a chorus of cries and laughter. A passenger who was bound not to be left had dived overboard, after the canoe. Up he rose, to the surface, and struck out. He was the long-nosed man, Mr. Jacobs!

"Wait! Wait! Man overboard!" rang the excited shouts to the dug-out; and Mr. Jacobs himself, swimming as high as he could, waved an arm and shouted.

But the crew of the dug-out only looked back and laughed; their captain, steering, shook his head and motioned no; and faster and faster traveled the canoe. The long-nosed man swam hard for a little way, when, giving up, he turned and came back to the ship.

The passengers gave him a round of applause mixed with laughter, as he clambered aboard; but leaning over to watch, Charley saw him pause at the rail and shake his fist after the retreating dug-out. He was not a good loser.

"Well, he's left, anyhow," greeted Mr. Grigsby, when Charley hastened back to find him and tell him. Mr. Grigsby was so tall, that he had seen as well as Charley, who was little and could squeeze about under people's arms. "It's a wonder. That kind of person usually swipes the best seat."

"I'm glad, aren't you?" answered Charley. "Maybe we won't have any more trouble with him."

"Humph! Can't count on that yet," asserted Mr. Grigsby.

"My father didn't get left. He's in the boat, all right," said Charley, proudly.

"Yes. I knew he'd make it. Now as soon as we can get ashore we'll start up-river."

But nothing was done aboard the Georgia, toward landing the passengers, until another hour. Then suddenly the word spread: "Get your baggage. Everybody ashore," and the sailors began to lower the boats.

By the fight for place, that again occurred, anybody would have thought that the ship was sinking and that only those people who got into the boats at once would be saved! The parties who had no men ashore were the most determined to be first.

"Pshaw! Let 'em go," spoke Mr. Grigsby, as the shoving crowd jostled him and Charley hither and thither. "We can wait. I'm not specially anxious to be capsized and lose all our stuff."

Boat after boat, loaded to the water's edge, pulled away from the ship for the shore, canoes hastened to help, and still the passengers clamored and fought. In the confusion Charley lost all track of the long-nosed man and his partners. The main thought now was, when could he and Mr. Grigsby get ashore and find his father?

When the boats returned for their second loads there was another hurly-burly, but the decks were thinning out, and pushing to the nearest ladder Charley and the Fremonter managed to climb down, lowering their baggage, into the boat there. The boat was loaded full almost instantly, and away it pulled, for the shore again.

Standing up, because there wasn't space to sit down, Charley eagerly gazed ahead. Slowly the shore enlarged; and turning the high point on which was the Castle of San Lorenzo the boat entered the mouth of the river. A little bay unfolded, its shore high on the left, low and marshy on the right. On the left, at the foot of the thickly wooded bluffs, among bananas and plantains, appeared a little group of peak-roofed huts, all the muddy bank in front of them alive with the Georgia's passengers. Was that the town of Chagres? Well, who would want to live here!

The passengers already landed were running about like ants, every one acting as if his life again depended upon his getting away immediately. The landing place was covered with baggage which had been dumped ashore. A number of canoes were lying in the shoal water, and a number of others had been hauled out while their owners repaired them. Amidst the baggage, and over the canoes, swarmed the Georgia's passengers, in their flannel shirts or broadcloth or muddy white, shouting and pleading and threatening, trying to hire the boatmen.

"There's your father," spoke Mr. Grigsby, suddenly, to Charley, as their boat neared the busy landing.

Charley had been anxiously searching the shore, looking for his father; and now he saw him, standing in a canoe drawn up out of the water, and beckoning.

This looked promising; maybe that was their canoe! The moment that the ship's boat grounded, its passengers tumbled out, helter-skelter, into the mud, and raced for land, lugging their bed-rolls, to swell the bevy already landed. Mr. Grigsby shouldered his own bedroll, gave Charley a hand with the other, and together they joined in the scramble.



"Hello!" greeted Mr. Adams. He was as breathless as they, for every minute he was shoving away persons who tried to seize the canoe, and was explaining that it was taken. A black boatman was busy thatching the canopy top with dried palm leaves—and he, too, was obliged to keep shaking his head and saying: "No. No. Go 'way."

"Well, here's our boat," continued Mr. Adams, briskly. "Here's one boatman; his name's Maria. Francisco, the other, is up town buying provisions. No," called Mr. Adams, to a Georgia passenger who was thrusting money fairly into the face of Maria, "you can't hire this boat. It's taken."

"I've paid fifteen dollars apiece, for the three of us and our baggage up to Cruces, forty miles. That's as high as boats go; there we'll have to take mules across to Panama," continued Mr. Adams—the outsider having gone off disappointed. "I think we've got a good boat; but I've had a fight to keep it. If Maria hadn't have stayed, I'd have been thrown out, long ago."

"When do we start?" asked Charley.

"Whenever Francisco comes back."

"Do you reckon we'll have time to eat?" queried Mr. Grigsby.

"Yes. And that might be a good plan, too."

"You and Charley go up and see what you can find, and I'll hold the boat," directed Mr. Grigsby, climbing in.

"All right. Come along, Charley," and Mr. Adams alertly limped on up the gentle slope, to the village.

The huts were square, made of cane and roofed with palm-leaf thatch, to a peak. There were no window-panes or doors. The Chagres men and women stood in the doorways, and gazed curiously out while they puffed big black cigars and talked about the crazy Americanos.

This, then, was Chagres at the mouth of the Chagres River, the beginning of the Isthmus trip to the Pacific. (But when the great Panama Canal was built, it left the Chagres River, above the town, and cutting across a neck of land struck the ocean at Limon Bay, eight miles down the coast. The first Panama railroad also chose Limon Bay as one terminus; so that the town of Chagres soon lost its business.)

Mr. Adams spoke Spanish, because he had been a soldier in Mexico; and right speedily he bought bread and bananas and eggs and some dried meat. There was a hut bearing a sign in English: "Crescent Hotel"; but one look into it and at its mob of panting customers decided Charley and his father to eat in their canoe.

"Good! There's Francisco!" exclaimed Mr. Adams, as they returned.

"Yes; and there's that Jacobs again!" cried Charley. "He's after our canoe!"

"He won't get it," said his father. "We've paid for it, and we keep it."



VII

A RACE UP THE RIVER

The river landing was still the same scene of wild bustle, with the white people running up and down, darting hither-thither, all determined to set out at once. The dark-skinned natives were the cool ones amidst the flurry; and the boatmen were the coolest. Every canoe was constantly being pounced upon by fresh seekers who were yet without a craft, but the majority of the canoes seemed to have been engaged. However, a few boatmen evidently were holding out for higher pay.

Sure enough, the long-nosed man and one of his partners were hotly arguing with Maria at the bows, and offering him money; whereat Maria only shook his head, under its wide-brimmed braided straw hat, and scarcely paused in his work of thatching the canopy. Francisco stood looking on and listening. He was a strapping big fellow, not very black, wearing loose cotton pantaloons. In his ears were brass rings, for earrings. Just as Charley and his father arrived, the long-nosed man roughly seized Maria by the shoulder, as if to jerk him from his work and force him to take the money. At that, Francisco sprang forward like a panther, grabbed the long-nosed man by the collar, and flung him head over heels, along the mud.

Well plastered, the long-nosed man picked himself up, and glared at Francisco. By-standers laughed. Mr. Jacobs make a step forward, as if to leap while Francisco waited, panting and ready. But Mr. Jacobs's partner said, shortly: "Come along. We can't waste time here," and with a parting scowl the long-nosed man turned away with him.

Neither of them seemed to have noticed whose boat it was. All they wanted now was anybody's boat, of any kind. Charley was glad to see them go.

Francisco grinned at Mr. Adams and Charley. From the stern where he was sitting Mr. Grigsby approved, to Francisco, with a jocular sentence in Spanish, at which Francisco grinned again. Maria spoke aside, and Mr. Adams nodded, translating to Charley:

"Maria says we have paid for the boat and it is our boat. He and Francisco want it understood that they are gentlemen and honest."

"As long as we treat them right they'll treat us right," put in Mr. Grigsby. "We're lucky. I've seen some of these boats change hands half a dozen times, already."

"Yes; when once you get to bribing there's no end to it," asserted Mr. Adams. "I don't trust anybody I can bribe."

The baggage was in the boat; the small trunk toward the stern, and bedding rolls arranged toward the bows. Francisco had dumped in a boiled ham and a sack of rice; he took the other supplies from Charley and his father, and stowed them also. A pair of broad-bladed paddles lay along the gunwales, fore and aft.

"Go ahead," spoke Maria, stepping back from the canopy. He motioned his passengers into the canoe.

"Good!" said Mr. Adams. "Get into the bows, Charley. You and I'll sit amidships, Grigsby. How many canoes ahead of us?"

"About a dozen, I reckon."

"We ketch 'em," assured Maria, confidently.

He and Gonzales seized the gunwales and bent low, shoving. The dug-out slipped down the slimy bank, through the ooze, into the water, and with final shove Maria and Francisco vaulted aboard. Maria in the stern, behind the trunk, Francisco kneeling at Charley's feet, between the bedding rolls, they grasped their paddles, and swung the canoe up-stream. With a few powerful strokes they left behind them the bank, where the white horde, crazed by the sight of another boat making start, shouted and gestured more frantically than ever.

Charley just glimpsed still another boat putting out from the landing, when his canoe swept around a curve, and landing and crowd and village all were blotted from view by a mass of foliage. Even the sounds of bargaining ceased. The canoe might have been a thousand miles into the wilderness, where nobody lived.

"All right," remarked Charley's father, settling himself comfortably. "Now 'go ahead,' as they say. There are 300 people waiting at Panama for the California, and I only hope we get there in time."

"Maria says we'll reach Cruces in three days, if we don't have accidents," spoke Mr. Grigsby. "Might as well enjoy the scenery."

The dug-out was called a cayuca. It was about twenty feet long, but very narrow, and was hollowed from a single trunk of mahogany—for mahogany was as common down here as pine up North. Charley felt quite luxurious, riding in a mahogany boat!

He never had dreamed of such scenery. The crooked river flowed between a perfect mass of solid green blotched with blazes of flowers. Bananas, plantains, cocoa and other palms, bread-fruit, gigantic teak trees, dense leaved mangoes, acacias and mangroves on stilt roots like crutches, sugar-cane, sapotes with sweet green fruit the size of one's head, sapodillas with fruit looking like russet apples, mahogany, rose-wood, and a thousand others which neither Mr. Grigsby nor Charley's father recognized, grew wild, as thick as grass—and every tree and shrub was wreathed with flowering vines trying to drag it down. Monkeys and parrots and other odd beasts and birds screamed and gamboled in the branches; and in the steeply rising jungle and in the water strange noises were continually heard. There were violent splashes and snorts from alligators—and Mr. Grigsby saw two wild boars. Now and then sluggish savannahs or swamps opened on right or left, filled with vegetation and animals.

It was the rainy season and the river was running full, about seventy-five yards wide, with a strong current in the middle. Paddling hard, Maria and Francisco zigzagged from side to side across the bends, seeking the stiller water and the eddies. Trees bent over and almost brushed the canoe—and suddenly Maria, in the stern, cried out and pointed.

"Python!" he uttered. "Mira! (Look!)"

He and Francisco backed water and stared. So did their passengers, and well it was that the canoe had been stopped. From the lower branches of a large leafy tree jutting out into the very course of the canoe was hanging a long, mottled object, swaying and weaving. Charley saw the head—a snake's head! A boa constrictor, as large around as a barrel, and with most of its body hidden in the tree!

"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Grigsby, and raised his rifle. With single movement the two boatmen swung the canoe broadside and held it. The Fremonter sent eagle glance adown his leveled barrel—the rifle cracked and puffed a little waft of smoke. "Spat!" sounded the bullet. The huge snake began to writhe and twist, fairly shaking the tree; then fold by fold it issued, in a horrid mazy line of yellow and black (would it never end?), until with a plash the last of it fell into the water and swirling the surface the monster disappeared.

"Bueno! Bueno! Mucho culebra (Good! Good! Big snake)" exclaimed Maria; and chattering in Spanish he and Francisco hastily veered the canoe further from the bank.

"They say the snake's mate is liable to be near and we'd better stand out," explained Mr. Adams. "He was a big one, sure."

"Forty feet, I judge," answered Mr. Grigsby.

"Where'd you hit him?" asked Charley, eagerly.

"In the eye," asserted Mr. Grigsby. "You don't think a Fremont man would shoot for any other mark, do you?"

Mile after mile steadily paddled Maria and Francisco, up the magic river. Already their bronze bodies, sinewy and naked, were glistening with perspiration, for in here, between the high wooded hills, it was very hot and moist. Charley's neck was tired, from twisting his head so that he could see everything at once; and on their seat amidships his father and Mr. Grigsby were constantly craning right and left.

Abruptly Maria and Francisco ceased paddling, threw aside their plaited hats, kicked off their cotton trousers, and crying together "Bano! Bano!" plunged overboard. Charley gazed in alarm. What had happened? Another boa threatening? But his father and Mr. Grigsby read his alarmed face and laughed.

"Oh, they're just taking a swim, that's all," explained his father. "They said 'bano,' which is Spanish for bath."

Nevertheless, this struck Charley as a dangerous thing to do, in a river swarming with alligators and other reptiles; yet frisking about and blowing and ducking Maria and Francisco seemed to be enjoying themselves. They swam like seals.

"We might as well have a snack to eat, while we wait," quoth Mr. Grigsby. He threw Charley some bananas, and cut off chunks of the dried meat for the company. By the time they three had eaten a little lunch, Maria and Francisco had climbed aboard, donned their trousers and hats, and resuming their paddles were starting on again, evidently much refreshed.

In the straightaways behind and before other canoes, hurrying up-river, were sighted. One of the canoes behind crept closer and closer. Maria and Francisco occasionally glanced over their wet shoulders at it, but although they worked bravely, and Maria sang lustily:

Yankee doodle doodle doo, Yankee doodle dandy; Yankee doodle doodle doo, Yankee doodle dandy. Yankee doodle dandy, Yankee doodle dandy, Yankee doodle doodle doo, Yankee doodle dandy!

the canoe behind was proving too much for them. Meanwhile Charley wondered how Maria had invented his "American" song.

The canoe behind held seven persons; and of course it could overhaul Charley's canoe, for four of the persons were paddlers. Charley, facing backward in the bows, had the best view of it; and as on it came, the four paddlers digging hard, he saw, as somehow he had expected, that the three passengers were the long-nosed man and two partners.

With its paddlers grunting in unison, the water spurting from the prow, and the three passengers lolling back, it surged past. One of Mr. Jacobs's cronies yelled, mockingly: "Want a tow?"—and the paddlers grinned.

"No matter," panted Maria, to his own company. "We ketch 'em. Dey pay big mooney; pay more 'fore dey get dere. You bet."

The river ran swifter, now, and Maria and Francisco worked their level best to make way against the heavy, muddy current. The sun was almost touching the high green ridge to the west, when Mr. Grigsby, who had sharp eyes, said, with a nod of his head:

"That must be Gatun, where we stop for the night."

The canoe was turning in toward the right bank; and Charley, looking, saw a cluster of thatched huts there. A number of other canoes were tied at the bank, and their boatmen and passengers were loafing among the huts. A loud dispute was going on between some boatmen and passengers. As Charley's boat glided up, and Francisco leaped ashore to hold it, the long-nosed man's angry tones sounded loud and familiar. It was he and his two partners who were threatening their boatmen.

"We want to go on. Go on—understand? We paid you extra; big money. No stop here; no stop. You savvy?"

But the boatmen shrugged their bare shoulders, and sauntered away, leaving the three men furious.

"No use, pardner," called another gold seeker. "These niggers always stop here for the night. You might as well swallow your cud."

"But we paid them one hundred dollars to take us straight through," rasped Mr. Jacobs.

"Yes, and stole another party's boat in the bargain, I understand," retorted the gold seeker. "Serves you right."

"Well, I'd like to have them up North for about ten minutes," growled the man who had drawn knife on Mr. Grigsby aboard the Georgia. "I'd tan their hides for 'em."

"Shucks! Such tall talk doesn't go down here," answered the other. "They're as free as you are, and no crookeder."

He plainly enough was somebody not afraid to speak his mind; and since they were getting the worst of the argument the three scallawags quit complaining.

"We'll have to hustle to find lodging here," spoke Mr. Adams, rather dubiously surveying the crowd and the huts.

And indeed the outlook was not promising. The village was small and dirty, squatting here amidst bananas and palms and sugar-cane, its people the same kind as at Chagres. (To-day the surface of the great Gatun Lake, formed by the famous Gatun dam which has blocked the course of the Chagres River in order to obtain water for the big canal, covers old Gatun village—and other villages besides.)

There seemed to be enough gold seekers here, now, to fill every hut to overflowing. But Maria (who appeared to have taken a fancy to his party) came pattering back from an errand, and beckoned to Mr. Adams.

"It looks as though Maria had found something for us," said Charley's father, as they followed Maria.

Maria led them beyond the village, and behind a screen of banana trees, to a little hut crouched there cosily. The owner of the hut, and his wife, stood in the doorway.

They wore a long, clean cotton shirt apiece. Half a dozen children who wore nothing at all were peeping out from behind their parents' skirts.

The man and woman bowed grandly, and Maria spoke in Spanish.

"The house is ours, he says," informed Charley's father. "Good! Now how about something to eat, I wonder?"

That was soon answered. When they filed through the doorway, to inspect, here was a cane table set with supper—fried eggs, fried bread-fruit, also real bread, baked bananas, sweet potatoes, beef dried in strips, black coffee—and in the middle of the table a baked something that looked exactly like a baked baby!

"Oh!" cried Charley, startled. "What's that?"

"A baked monkey, 'pon my word!" exclaimed his father. "Well, that's more than I can go."

"I'm no cannibal, myself," quoth Mr. Grigsby. "Fact is, I'd rather eat outside."

"No, I'll have them take it away," opposed Mr. Adams; and amidst laughter the baked monkey was removed.

They sat on the earthen floor and ate. Things tasted mighty good. The huts had no windows, and a dirt floor. A woven grass hammock swung from the poles, and a number of cowhides were laid like a couch. Maria said something about "muchacho" (which Charley knew was Spanish for boy) and pointed to the hammock.

"That's yours," translated Charley's father, to Charley. "We men sleep on those hides, I suppose."

While eating, Charley began to prickle, and shrugging his shoulders politely scratched. His partners were doing the same, and Mr. Grigsby laughed.

"Fleas!" he grunted. "That's all. Got to expect them. Otherwise we're lucky."

Fleas? There were millions of them! They hopped even over the food; but Charley was so hungry that he couldn't stop for that. He scratched and ate.

Darkness descended early in the jungle. Maria and Francisco said that they'd all start up-river again at daybreak, or five o'clock, so it behooved the party to get to bed. Charley took one stroll, after supper, into the village, sight-seeing. The village was a-riot with noise. The natives were beginning a dance, to the light of torches, on the grass, for the entertainment of the visitors. Tom-toms whanged, flutes screeched, people cheered, and a number of the gold seekers were acting like rowdies. It was a wild scene, amidst flaring torches; but Charley thought best to beat a retreat to the safety of the hut.

With his clothes on he clambered into his hammock. His father and Mr. Grigsby lay on the pile of hides. Where the family slept could not be found out; Maria and Francisco slept in the boat, to guard the baggage.

Half the night the uproar in the village continued, but this did not bother Charley as much as the fleas did. They accompanied him into his hammock, and were busy every minute, it seemed to him. And judging by the sounds from his father and Mr. Grigsby, there were fleas enough to go around, with some to spare!

Charley thought that he had just fallen asleep, when he was awakened by a tremendous roar. The hut was shaking, his hammock trembled, and the world seemed ablaze. He half sat up, staring about him. Oh, a thunder-storm! But what a storm! The storm that had caught him in the boat aboard ship was only a shower, compared with this storm in the tropical jungle. The rain was falling in a solid mass as if poured from a gigantic bucket, while the red lightning blazed without a pause. There was no wind; it was the weight of the water that made the hut tremble—of rain drumming so steadily that even the thunder was scarcely noticeable.

The interior of the hut was constantly light. He saw his father and Mr. Grigsby also sitting up—and on the floor the water was running an inch deep.

"Stay where you are, Charley," bade his father. "You're all right. We can't do better."

That was so; and so long as his father and Mr. Grigsby were not frightened, Charley determined that he need not be, either. So he lay, high and pretty dry (the rain beat through the thatch in a thin mist), and wondered where all that water came from. He also wondered how Maria and Francisco were faring. But probably they knew how to take care of themselves, because they lived down here.

The storm passed; on a sudden the rain stopped, the lightning died away; and Charley fell asleep in earnest.

When he awakened the hut was pink with morning. His father was standing in the doorway, looking out; Mr. Grigsby was gone. His father turned, as Charley stirred; and said:

"Hello. Ready to start?"

"Yes. Is it time?"

"High time. We overslept a little. You'd better tumble out. There's some coffee on the table, waiting for you. Drink it, and we'll go on and finish breakfast in the boat."

Out piled Charley, hastily swallowed a cup of coffee, and was ready—all but washing, which he determined he could do at the river. He was stiff and flea-bitten, but otherwise felt all right.

He followed his tall father out into the fresh morning. Everything was dripping and soggy, but the sun was going to shine, and dry the world off. Together they trudged through the wetness, into the village. Other gold seekers were trooping down to the river, and the villagers, yawning and weary-eyed after the dance, were watching them, and collecting money due for entertainment.

Mr. Grigsby was standing on the river bank, leaning on his rifle and gazing about rather puzzled, while canoe after canoe was pushing off.

"No hurry," he spoke, when Charley and Mr. Adams arrived in haste. "Save your breath."

"Why's that?" asked Mr. Adams, sharply.

"Our canoe's gone, and so are our boatmen!"



VIII

A TRICK—AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

That was so! Here was the very spot where the cayuca had been tethered to a pole. Charley remembered the pole, forked at the upper end. Only the forked tip was visible, for the river had risen amazingly from the rain, and was running over its bank. But the pole was sticking out—and no canoe was attached to it. Of canoe, and of Maria and Francisco, not a sign appeared.

Two thirds of the other canoes had gone; the others were rapidly leaving, as their occupants piled into them. The canoe of the long-nosed man and his companions already had started, for its place was vacant. Charley looked to see.

"It can't be that they've deserted!" exclaimed his father.

Mr. Grigsby shook his head, and smiled.

"Scarcely," he said. "See here. I've been waiting to show you."

He waded in knee deep, pulled up the pole and returned with it. A fragment of grass rope still hung to it. The rope had been cut!

"I think," said Mr. Grigsby, slowly, "that we've our three friends to thank for this. Looks to me as though somebody had cut the rope and set the canoe adrift, with our men in it."

"Then they're liable to be miles down the river!"

"Just so, baggage and all."

"We can't wait," asserted Mr. Adams. "If we wait we run a good chance of missing the steamer. I wouldn't have those three rascals get there first for a thousand dollars. How about another canoe? Have you tried?"

"Not yet. I didn't know whether you wanted to leave your baggage."

"Certainly I'll leave it. It can follow us. We can't stay here long and run the risk of cholera. If you'll look for a canoe I'll see if we can't hire passage with some of these other parties. Here, gentlemen!" he called, to a canoe about to push out, and not heavily loaded. "Got any room to spare?"

"Nary an inch, mister," responded one of the men. And away they went.

Again and again Mr. Adams tried, and he always got the same answer. Truly, this was a very selfish crowd, every man thinking only of himself and the goal ahead. They all acted as if the gold would be gone, did they not reach California at the very earliest possible minute. The fact is, Charley felt that way himself.

Back came Mr. Grigsby, hot and wet and disgusted.

"There's not a canoe to be had," he announced. "I can't get a boat for love or money. Either they're all in use, or the people claim they want to use them later. I expect we'll have to wait."

"Do you think our men will be back?"

"Yes, sir, as soon as they can. They seem honest. We can't walk, anyway."

"No, I should say not," responded Mr. Adams, surveying the jungle encompassing close. "We couldn't go a mile. The river's the only trail. Very well, we'll wait a while. I've waited before, and so have you."

"Many a time," and Mr. Grigsby composedly seated himself on the bank, his rifle between his knees.

"I'll see about some breakfast, then," volunteered Mr. Adams. And away he strode.

Charley had listened with dismay to the conversation. The last of the gold seekers' dug-outs had left in a hurry, and was disappearing up-stream. And here were he and his partners, stranded at the very beginning of their journey across to the Pacific! That had been a mean trick by the long-nosed man. Charley grew hot with anger.

"I should think Maria and Francisco would have waked up," he complained.

"They're awake by this time, and considerably surprised, too," answered Mr. Grigsby. "As like as not they were covered with their gutta-percha blankets, from the rain, and the boat drifted away without their feeling a thing."

The sun had risen. A few of the villagers squatted beside Mr. Grigsby and Charley and chatted in Spanish. They didn't appear concerned over the matter. They seemed to think that it was a joke. Presently Mr. Adams came striding back.

"Nothing new, is there?" he queried. "All right. Breakfast is ready, anyway. I don't think these people will object to having us as steady boarders, at two bits apiece."

The breakfast, in the darkened hut where they had slept, was very good: baked plantains (that looked when whole like a banana, but when served cooked looked and tasted like squash), boiled rice, butterless bread, and black coffee again. Charley enjoyed that breakfast—how could he help it when he was hungry and the food was something new? But his father rose twice to look at the river. Evidently time was of more importance than eating.

However, the river brought nothing; and when they all had finished breakfast and went out together to inspect the river again, it proved still vacant of the dug-out, and of Maria and Francisco.

"I vow!" chafed Mr. Adams. "This is too bad."

Mr. Grigsby seated himself on the bank.

"I don't wish any snake harm that doesn't deserve it," he said. "But if a big boa would swallow that long-nosed man and his two cronies I don't reckon I'd feel especially sorry, except it would be powerful hard on the snake!"

The village pursued its daily routine. Some of the women washed clothing in the shallows, although the water seemed dirtier than the garments. Men and women, both, cut plantains and bananas and breadfruit, and scratched gardens with crooked sticks. Children played about, and a few canoes pushed out, to go fishing. But nobody worked any too fast. The sun beat down hotly, the air was moist and heavy, monkeys and parrots screamed in the trees, and ever the Chagres flowed past, brown and swollen from the rain. Considerable driftwood floated down, and this was the only passing object.

After about two hours had dragged by, Mr. Grigsby suddenly uttered, in his calm manner, with a nod of his head: "There they come." He had keen eyes, had the scout and trapper who had served with Kit Carson and Colonel Fremont, for Charley, peering down stream, saw only a small speck appearing around the bend. His father wasn't quite convinced, and squinting earnestly he said: "I hope so, but it may be some other canoe, after all."

"Not a bit," assured Mr. Grigsby. "That's our craft, with our men in it paddling for dear life. I can see 'em plain; can't you?"

Along the opposite bank crept the canoe—yes, it held two paddlers—now it was quartering across, making for the village; its crew certainly looked like Maria and Francisco.

Hurrah! Maria and Francisco they were; and indignant they proved to be, as their three passengers proceeded to the water's edge to meet them. They were panting and wringing wet, for they had come in a great hurry. The villagers flocked curiously down, to listen and inspect.

"Quick!" called Francisco, in Spanish, as he held the canoe to the bank, "Get in, Americans." He held up the severed rope attached to the prow. "Those rascals cut us adrift, but never mind. We'll hurry."

"We were almost down to Chagres again when we woke up," called Maria, to friends ashore. "We have been paddling ever since."

"Get aboard," bade Mr. Adams. "All right," he added, to the boatmen, as Mr. Grigsby followed him and Charley tumbled into the bows. Francisco gave a vigorous shove, out shot the canoe into the current; and instantly Maria and Francisco were digging again with their paddles.

"We've lost about six hours," remarked Charley's father. "And it's too late for even Grigsby's boa constrictor to help us out."

Maria seemed to have understood, for he grunted, encouragingly: "Go ahead! Ever'body go ahead!" And tacked on a sentence in Spanish.

"Maria says they'll paddle all night," translated Charley's father, for Charley. "That will help, but I expect a lot of other fellows will do the same."

"Well, we can do the best we're able," spoke Mr. Grigsby. "I reckon we'll get thar. The river's falling. That'll help."

By the looks of the water-line on the banks, this was so. Maria and Francisco made good progress, as they cunningly took advantage of every eddy. Speedily the village of Gatun disappeared in the heavy foliage behind, and once more the dug-out was afloat in the tropical wilderness.

The river was extremely crooked, and in spots was swift; and Maria and Francisco worked like Trojans to gain a few miles. (Of course there was no Gatun Lake here yet. The Chagres had not been dammed for any Panama Canal, but flowed in a course between high green hills bordered with lagoons.)

About noon another little hut village appeared in a clearing on the right bank. This was Dos Hermanos (Two Brothers), where people who left Gatun early in the morning usually stopped for breakfast, and their boatmen stopped for gossip. But Maria only shook his head at sight of it, and he and Francisco paused in their paddling not an instant. So Dos Hermanos faded from view, behind.

How they worked, those two boatmen—the muchos caballeros (much gentlemen) as they claimed to be! And certainly white boatmen never could have served more faithfully. Maria no longer sang his funny "Yankee Doodle Doo." He and Francisco saved their breath, while the perspiration rolled from them in streams. All day they paddled, pausing only twice for a bano, or bath. Other villages were passed, and one or two ranches; and in due time the sun set and dusk flowed down from the densely green hills.

With one accord Maria and Francisco swung the canoe in to the nearest bank, and tethered it to a leaning tree. Maria spoke in Spanish, and shrugging his shoulders, wearily stretched.

"Rest for two hours, and eat, is it?" quoth Mr. Grigsby, likewise stretching, and then standing up. "All right. These boys have earned it."

They certainly had. Still none of the gold seekers' flotilla ahead had been sighted, but assuredly some of the lead had been cut down. As for the long-nosed man's canoe, its four paddlers probably had kept it in the fore, and there was not much chance of overtaking it. Charley was rather glad. Maria and Francisco seemed to be so angry that there was no telling what they might not do to the men who had cut them adrift. And his father and Mr. Grigsby were to be reckoned with, too!

The forest on either side darkened rapidly. New birds and animals issued, for the night, and filled the jungle with strange, new cries. The river also was alive with splashes, from fish and reptile and beast unseen. But after they all had eaten supper of bananas and cold pork and cold plantains, washed down with cocoanut milk, Maria and Francisco laid themselves out in the boat, and slept. Their three passengers nodded and waited.

In two hours precisely the faithful boatmen awakened. Francisco lighted a pitchy torch and stuck it upright in the bows. Then the boat was shoved out, he and Maria resumed their paddles, and on they all went, up the river again.

This was a fascinating voyage. Great birds and beetles and bats swooped for the torch, and fled; fish leaped before the prow; and from the jungle on right and left harsh voices clamored in alarm. Charley, perched in the bows by the torch, which flared almost in his face, peered and listened. The ruddy light cut a little circle on the water, and shone on the dark, glistening forms of the two boatmen, and on the staring faces of Mr. Grigsby and Mr. Adams, sitting amidships.

The night seemed to be growing darker. Over the forest, on the right before, lightning was glimmering, and there was the low growl of thunder.

"Going to get wet," announced Mr. Grigsby. "It rains at least once every twenty-four hours, at this season."

Maria and Francisco exchanged a few sentences in Spanish and doubled their efforts. The dug-out surged along, but even when it was close to a bank the trees could scarcely be seen in the blackness.

"Well, Charley," called his father, "if we don't reach Pena Blanca (that was the next village, and the name meant White Rock) in time we are liable to get wet."

"Hark!" bade Mr. Grigsby. "Somebody's shouting."

Maria and Francisco had heard, also, for they rested on their paddles a moment, to listen. Again came the new sound—a shrill, prolonged cry wafting across the velvety river. Francisco looked back inquiringly at the two men amidships.

"Go over," said Mr. Adams, with motion of hand. "Somebody's hailing us."

Maria whooped loudly, and was answered. The dug-out turned, and slanted across the current.

Not a thing could be seen. The torch flared low, for a chill, damp breeze began to blow, in fitful fashion, heralding the storm. Maria whooped at intervals, and back came the cry in reply.

"They sound right ahead," spoke Mr. Grigsby. "Easy, boys."

"I see them! I see them!" exclaimed Charley. A lightning flash more vivid than any of the glimmers preceding had lighted the river with dazzling white; and peering intently he had seen a boat, with dark figures in it, limned not one hundred feet before. "They're straight in front—people in a boat."

"Hello!" now was wafted the shout, in English. "This way."

Maria and Francisco paddled slowly, awaiting another lightning flash. It came, disclosing the other boat only a few canoe lengths away. Maria and Francisco paddled cautiously; the lightning flashes were frequent, as if the storm was about to break, and the two boats could see one another constantly.

"What's the matter here?" demanded Mr. Adams, as Maria and Francisco held the dug-out a paddle's distance from the stranger boat. By the flare of the dying torch, and the flashes of the lightning, this was revealed as a native canoe, with two boatmen and two passengers.

"Be careful," warned a white man's voice. "We're hung up here on a snag, and need help. We've been here five hours, and not a boat would stop to lend a hand. If you've the hearts of men you'll stand by and give us a lift. Our boatmen are worn out, and one of us is sick as a dog."

"Well, sir, you can depend on us," assured Mr. Adams. "We're probably in the biggest hurry of all, but we're not brutes. Let's see what's to be done." He spoke to Maria in Spanish, and Maria and Francisco began to chatter with the other boatmen.

"We've sprung a leak, too," said the spokesman in the wrecked canoe. "It keeps two of us bailing. I won't leave my partner. He's too sick to swim. Cholera, I might as well tell you. Can you take us aboard?"

"We'll try," replied Mr. Adams. "Much baggage?"

"We've thrown the baggage over, or else we wouldn't be on top. All we ask is to get to Pena Blanca or some nearer place if there is any; and we'll pay your price."

"There's no price, sir," said Mr. Adams, firmly. "We can take them in, can't we, Grigsby?"

"You bet," responded Mr. Grigsby. "They can count on us some way or other. I'd not desert friend or stranger in distress for all the gold in California."

"Thanks later, then," spoke the other, shortly. "But our torch is out, there's a foot of water in the bottom, and if that storm breaks on us we'll be swamped. Fetch your boat alongside, will you?"

His tone was the tone of authority, as if he had been accustomed to command. Mr. Adams delivered a sentence to Maria; and the dug-out was carefully worked in to the wrecked boat. Now edge to edge they floated. The other boat was hard and fast on a sunken tree, and a sharp branch had jabbed clear through the bottom.

"My partner first," bade the man. "We'll have to lift him. He's far gone."

While the boatmen held the two crafts together by the gunwales, the helpless form, swathed in a blanket, was passed across and propped beside Maria in the stern. Then in stepped a short, stout, red-faced man, and the two boatmen nimbly followed, with their paddles.

The dug-out was weighted almost to the gunwale by the new load, and Charley caught his breath, in dismay. But she ceased sinking, and still floated.

"Cast off," bade the short man, brusquely. "Thank God," he breathed, wiping his brow. "I guess we'll make it now, storm or no storm. My boys will help paddle."

With an exclamation all together Maria and Francisco and the two new boatmen dipped their paddles, as the two boats parted; and the dug-out leaped ahead.

"My name is Captain Crosby. I'm a sailor, from Boston," the stranger introduced himself.

Mr. Adams explained who they were. Captain Crosby continued:

"I've followed the sea all my life, since I was a small boy, and this is one of the narrowest escapes I've ever had, afloat or ashore. If it hadn't been for you, my mate and I would have been drowned, or would have died in the jungle. As for those cowardly whelps who passed us by—faugh! Each one left us to the boat behind. Fiji Islanders would have had more heart than that. It was the cholera that scared 'em."

"I'm afraid your partner's very sick," commented Mr. Adams. And indeed, lying limp and unconscious, wrapped in the blanket, his features pinched and white in the glare of lightning and flare of torch, the partner certainly looked to Charley to be a very sick man.

"Yes, sir. He'll not recover. I've seen cholera before. But I'll stay with him to the last, and then I'll bury him. Seems to me you're late on the up-river trip, aren't you?"

"We are. But evidently there was a purpose in it," responded Mr. Adams. "Things work out for the best, in this world."

"You'll not lose by it, sir," asserted Captain Crosby. "Wait and see. You'll not lose by it. I've something up my sleeve. But now the main thing to be done is to land us and be rid of us."

That may have been so; in fact, it behooved them all to land, if the approaching storm's bite was as bad as its bark. The torch flickered and went out; but the lightning was light enough, illuminating river and wooded shores with blinding violet blazes. The bellow of the thunder was terrific—and while the four boatmen heaved with their paddles and encouraged each other with shrill cries, in a solid line down swept the first sheet of rain.

In an instant Charley was drenched to the skin. So were the other passengers, and the stinging drops lashed the bare bodies of the paddlers. The water swiftly gathered in the boat, so that Mr. Grigsby and the captain began to bail with gourds kept handy for the purpose. But, hurrah! There, on the near shore ahead, was another little village, Pena Blanca, its low huts showing dimly through the spume of the storm. Straight for it made the canoe—hit the sloping bank, and stuck while out stumbled the passengers, the captain shouldering his partner.

Francisco ran ahead, to show the way; and calling, dived in through the doorway of a hut larger than its neighbors. Charley followed, and in they all scurried. The other boatmen had stayed behind to spread rubber blankets over the baggage.



IX

TIT FOR TAT

Francisco spoke to the family in the hut, and rising, one of them lighted a candle. It was a two-story hut, and quarters were engaged in the up-stairs room for the three in Charley's party; while Captain Crosby and the sick man were given a place on the ground-floor.

The up-stairs was entered by a ladder. There was nothing better to be done than to sleep in wet clothes; and Charley, on his grass mat, was just beginning to be drowsy and fairly comfortable, and barely heard his father say to Mr. Grigsby: "We ought to pull out at daybreak, but that depends on what we can do for the captain," when the captain himself came poking up through the hole in the floor.

"Hello!" he said. "It's Crosby. Are you awake?"

"Yes, sir. What's wanted?"

"Nothing, thank you. I suppose you'd like to get away early."

"As early as possible, captain. But we're at your service."

"Your time is valuable now, gentlemen. Mine isn't. If you're going to catch the California, you haven't a moment to waste."

"We'll miss the California, rather than leave you in the lurch."

"You'll not miss her, if you make an early start and go right on through. I told you you wouldn't lose by your kindness to my mate and me, and you won't. I stay here; you go on whenever you choose."

"No, sir," said Mr. Adams. "If we can help you any we'll stay by you."

"I stop here," announced the captain. "As for my mate, he stops, too. He'll never travel again. Tomorrow I bury him. He's gone, making his last trip, and I expect he's landed in a better port than California. What I do next I don't know. Go back to Chagres, maybe. At any rate, here's his ticket from Panama up to San Francisco." By the flicker of the storm, now retreating, Captain Crosby was revealed groping across the floor, and extending a folded paper.

"What's that for?" demanded Mr. Adams.

"You're to take it and use it. Sell it, is my advice. You can get six hundred or more dollars for it, at Panama."

"I'll take and sell it, if you say so; but I'll send you the money. Your friend's family ought to have that."

"My mate had no kin alive. I don't want the money, and I know him well enough to know that he'd want you to have it. Yes, I understand that you didn't help us out for pay—you or any in your party. This isn't pay; it's just a little tit for tat. Sell that ticket and divide the proceeds among you, not omitting the boy. It may tide you over a tight place, just as you tided us over a tight place. You see, the ticket's no good to me. And now there's another thing or two, before we part. You've run a big chance of getting left; and even if you reach Panama in time for the steamer, you're liable to find her full up ere that. Here's a note I've written to Captain Flowers, of the California. He's an old ship-mate of mine. I sailed with him before I got my papers, and we're as close as brothers. He's expecting me, at Panama, and he'd hold the ship for me, if possible. I've asked him to take your party on instead, and he'll do so even if he has to give up his own cabin. My two boatmen will ship with your craft and help your boys up-river from here to Cruces. There they'll find you the mules to carry you on to Panama. Without these fellows you might have difficulty to find any mules, for the crowd in advance probably has hired every tassel-tail in sight. But I'm known all along the trail from Chagres to Panama; I've been across time and again, and I have my lines laid. Now I think you're fixed for a quick passage."

"But, my dear man!" exclaimed Mr. Adams. "This is too much. We can't accept——"

"It isn't, and you can," retorted the captain, bluntly. "I'm not inconveniencing myself a particle, whereas your party took a risk. Now good-bye and good luck to you, gentlemen; and the same to you, my lad. Here are the documents. You'll find my boatmen with your boatmen in the morning. There'll not be much time to say good-bye then, if you start as early as I think you'll start. I'll leave word for you to be called at four o'clock."

So saying, the bluff captain shook hands all around, declined to listen to further thanks, and ducked back down the ladder.

"There's a good turn repaying another in short order," remarked Mr. Grigsby. "If we help somebody else off a snag we're likely to have a whole ship put at our disposal!"

"Well, don't look for that," laughed Mr. Adams. "I'd help the next man anyway."

"Certainly," agreed the Fremonter. "So would I."

And Charley sleepily determined that he would, also. But anyway, the future looked bright again.

"We ought to reach Cruces to-morrow, and Panama the day after," remarked Mr. Adams; which were the last words that Charley heard until he was shaken by the shoulder and his father's voice was saying: "All right, Charley. Time to start."

The interior of the room was not yet pink with very early morning. Charley stiffly scrambled to his feet, and followed his father down the ladder, and through the room below—treading carefully so as not to disturb the sleepers there. Mr. Grigsby already was out; and if Captain Crosby was awake he pretended to be asleep so as to avoid more thanks!

A little fire blazed on the river bank, near the boat. The boatmen had made coffee and boiled some rice in cocoa-milk for the breakfast, so that within fifteen minutes the boat was headed up-stream, on the spurt for Cruces.

Now urged by four paddlers instead of two, it fairly flew, cleaving the current while the dim shores and water grew lighter. The mountain divide ahead was gradually drawing closer, and all the country along the stream seemed steeper. One by one ranches were passed which in the midst of cleared forest and jungle looked more prosperous than the ranches of the lower river.

Well it was that the boat was equipped with four boatmen, for the current ran very swift off the high hills, and contained several rapids where two of the men—yes, and once all four of them—had to shove with poles. They constantly chewed sections of sugar-cane cut from an armful that had been tossed in at Pena Blanca. Charley tried the same stunt, and found that the sugar-cane juice was good for a lunch.

Shortly after noon the course made a long turn about the foot of a mighty, rounded hill, standing alone. Great trees clustered thickly to its top; and here, high above all, up rose a single straight palm, like a plume in the crown of a noble chief. The boatmen spoke, one to another, and Francisco pointed.

"There you are, Charley," said Mr. Adams. "That's Mount Carabali. It used to be a lookout for Indians and pirates. From that palm you can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific. We're about ten miles from Cruces."

In four miles more a large village called Gorgona was passed. During half the year this was the place where people crossing the Isthmus changed from boat to mule-back, but during the other half Cruces, six miles above, was the junction. (As for old Gorgona, to-day it has been swallowed, the most of it, by the greedy Gatun Lake of the big canal.)

Above Gorgona about two miles the Chagres River, whose course had mainly been east and west, turned sharply to the left, while a fork called the Obispo River continued on toward the Pacific. (Here, to-day, at the forks, the Gatun Lake ends, after swallowing Gorgona, and the celebrated Culebra Cut proceeds on west into the mountains, making a path for the great canal, with Panama only fifteen miles away. However, in 1849 and for many years afterward, the Panama Canal across the Isthmus was not visible to the eye. There was no Gatun Lake and no Culebra Cut; there was only the beautiful, tricky Chagres River, flowing between its high jungly banks and divided, above Gorgona, where the Obispo entered.) So the canoe carrying Charley and his party turned south up the Chagres, and toiled on, amidst rugged green walls, to Cruces, at last.

Las Cruces (The Place of Crosses) was situated on the west bank of the Chagres, and as the canoe approached appeared to be a village of much importance. As Charley had heard, it had been a famous old town, connected with Panama by a paved stone road called the Royal Road, over which treasure of gold and silver and pearls was borne by slaves and mules and horses, on the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic at Porto Bello and Nombre de Dios. Yes, and in 1670 Las Cruces was captured by the pirates of Henry Morgan (Morgan the Buccaneer, who sacked the whole Isthmus), on their way overland to attack Panama.

As the canoe grounded, old Cruces, with its regulation thatched cane huts and a few—very few—wooden buildings, looked sleepy enough in the late afternoon sunlight, as if treasure-trains and pirates and even those other gold seekers, the California Forty-niners, never had been here. One of Captain Crosby's boatmen, named Angel (and a queer black angel he was!), sprang nimbly ashore, to proceed on "up town." The other boatmen hauled the canoe higher.

"Angel's gone to find the mules," explained Mr. Adams, as all disembarked, glad to stretch their legs. "There's not an animal in sight; that's sure. The crowd ahead of us cleaned out the place."

"They didn't all get away, though. See the tents, yonder?" spoke Mr. Grigsby; for three tents had been pitched, not far back from the river, on the edge of the town.

Francisco saw, too, and shook his head vehemently, as did his comrades.

"Muy malo. Colera—mucha colera. Cuidado (Very bad. Cholera—much cholera. Be careful)," he said.

"Shouldn't wonder," muttered Mr. Adams.

"I'll go over," volunteered Mr. Grigsby, "and see if we can do anything." Shouldering his faithful rifle, the tall Fremonter strode for the tents.

When he returned he reported that Francisco had guessed truly: the tents held sick gold seekers, laid by with the dreaded cholera. But in a couple of more tents, beyond, were some engineers on a survey for the new Panama railroad. They had insisted that every horse and mule in the region had been gobbled by the gold-seeker crowd, and that the Adams party must wait for several days, at least, until the pack trains returned from Panama. However, here came Angel, grinning, and beckoning. He called shrilly; whereupon the three other boatmen promptly shouldered the baggage and started for him.

"Angel evidently has fixed us out," asserted Mr. Adams, as with Charley and Mr. Grigsby he followed.

"If he has he deserves his name," answered the Fremonter.

Angel led the way straight through the hot town, where the natives stared languidly at the little procession, to a large plantation beyond. Here, in a clearing devoted to maize and sugar-cane, amidst bananas and plantains and palms, and huge acacias laden with fragrant yellow blossoms, was nestled a white wooden house, two storied, encircled with porch and wide upper veranda. A path of white crushed shells led through luxuriant flowers to the front porch, where somebody was lying in a hammock. Charley felt rather awed, for this evidently was a wealthy ranch, belonging to cultured people.

As the party approached, crunching over the walk, the person in the hammock rolled out, to receive them. He proved to be a stout, heavy man, in loose white trousers, slippers, and white shirt. His complexion was swarthy, a magnificent black beard covered his chin and cheeks, and he plainly was a Spaniard. But he spoke good English.

"Welcome, senors," he greeted, with a wave of his hand. "I understand you are from my good friend El Capitan Crosby. If so, my house and all that is mine are at your disposal—a su disposicion, senors."

That was a pleasant speech, indeed. Still, Mr. Adams, like Charley, felt a little doubtful.

"Thank you, sir," he responded. "Captain Crosby was kind enough to tell us that we would find accommodations at Las Cruces, that is true. We left him down at Pena Blanca. But we do not wish to intrude upon you. Our main thought is to get to Panama; and if you know of any mules or horses, and a guide——"

The stout man courteously interrupted.

"Enough said, with your permission, senor. Horses and guide shall be found, of course; and meantime you will honor me by spending the night. You would gain nothing by attempting the trip before morning. The trail is bad enough, by day. This is the Hacienda las Flores, and I am Don Antonio de Soto. Let your men drop your baggage, which will be properly attended to, and be pleased to enter."

Mr. Adams introduced himself and party; and with Don Antonio refusing to listen to any apologies, into the house they went. It was delightfully cool there, where the rooms were high and large and simply furnished with cane chairs and couches. Don Antonio's wife, the Senora Isabella (and a beauty), came forward also to welcome them. In white dress, with a red rose stuck into her black hair, she took Charley's fancy at once. Then there was a boy, Pascal, about Charley's age—a handsome young fellow, slim and dark, with wonderful black-brown eyes and dazzling white teeth. Servants glided hither-thither, to bring glasses of lemonade and pine-apple juice, and to distribute the bed-rooms; and when Charley found himself confronted by a real bed, with a bath at his disposal, he thought that they all were in right good hands. He wished that his mother was here, too. The Senora made him rather homesick. How his mother would enjoy this place!

"We noticed the tents of some of the new railroad engineers, at the edge of town, sir," remarked Mr. Adams, at supper, where Charley, arrayed in his last clean suit of white, found the creamy beaten cocoa, served on a spotless table, was the most delicious thing that he had ever tasted. "I wonder how the work is going on."