the bank by the vines that had served him in
coming, disappearing from sight and sound swiftly and silently as a
great cat. Little and Barry leaned towards each other, seeking to
discern features and expressions. It was hopeless in the blackness, but
Barry's feelings were revealed in his tone.

"Stow this awning!" he growled, rising to his feet and furiously casting
off the stern line. "Little, if you need sleep, catch it now. I'll wait
no longer for the answer to this riddle." Then to the crew he barked:
"Cast off for'ard; shove off, bow; step the masts and make sail!"

Again the boat moved smoothly through the water, the near bank faded
into the general smudge of night, and she stood over until the farther
shore appeared like a darker patch on a dark screen. Then two seamen
with keen eyes were told off to keep the bank in view, and they alone
served as guides for the blind course.

For hours they stemmed the stream, brushing overhanging vines and
mosses with their masts at times; then a great round moon peeped over
the tangled trees and shed a ribbon of vivid light upon the river, ever
intensifying and widening until the surrounding country stood revealed
to them as clearly as in noontime.

Little sat beside the skipper, wide-eyed and alert as himself, and now
they could see something of the windings of the stream. Barry's chart
had shown the river only as far as navigation was possible for vessels
coming up from the sea, and that stopped at a very short distance above
the trading post. Here, a few miles beyond the point where they had left
Vandersee, the banks trended ever in a wide sweep, reach after reach,
until, allowing for the moon's hourly passage, something in her position
proved to Barry what he had for some time begun to suspect.

"Say, Little," he remarked, "we've sailed or rowed almost twenty miles
now, and be darned if I don't think we're within five miles of the post
yet!"

"Anything's likely to me, Barry," returned Little carelessly. "If you
said we'd gone the other way and would sight Surabaya in fifteen
minutes, I'd believe you, old sailor. This darkness and light, racket
and hush, mud flats and moss on the masts, all in one evening, has got
me flummuxed. But I've got one little thought myself," he added
dreamily.

"Ye Gods!" ejaculated Barry sarcastically. "What?"

"Oh, just whether Leyden knows Vandersee's here or not."

"I suppose so. The Mission folks and Mrs. Goring know it, don't they