aptain continued, spreading out a map so that the other man could see
it. "I cannot spare any men for an escort for you, because my force
is already far too small for what we have to do. Instead of following
back the road we took in coming here--which would be impassable for
any one but a man on foot, even if I had a horse for you, which I
have not--I think you can make better time by another route.

"Six miles from here," pointing to the map, "you will reach the same
river which we crossed at a point farther up the stream. Get a boat
there and go down the river some fifteen or twenty miles, until you
come to a native village built at the head of steep falls in the
stream. I am told that until you reach there the river is navigable,
and that the current is so swift much of the way that you can make
rapid progress. At that village you will have to leave your boat,
but from that place you will find a clearly marked path to Ilo Ilo.

"The quicker you start, the better; and, as I have told you, I trust
it to you to see that the general has the dispatch before the Utica
leaves port."

It was ten o'clock in the forenoon when the sergeant had been sent
for to come to headquarters. Half an hour later he had started, the
letter tightly wrapped in a bit of rubber blanket before he had placed
it inside his jacket, for he had already had enough experience with
the native boats to know how unstable they would be in the current
of a rapid river.

The five miles from Pasi to the river were easily made, in spite of
the fact that it was midday, for there was a good path, which, for
nearly all the distance, was shaded by lofty trees. When he reached
the river the sergeant bought from a man whom he found there a native
"banca," for three dollars, a sum of money which would make a native
rich. In this boat he started on his voyage down the river.

A native "banca" is a "dug-out," a canoe hollowed out from the trunk
of a tree. It is propelled and guided by a short, broad-bladed paddle,
and is as unstable as the lightest racing shell, although not any
where nearly so easy to send through the water.

It was unfortunate for the sergeant that he did not know--what
he could not, since the map did not show it--that the place where
the path touched the river first was on the upper side of a huge
"ox-bow" bend. If he had kept on by land, a third of a mile's walk
farther through the swamp would have brought him to the river again,
at a point