the bows, deep in an examination of the tumbler
gear that released the big anchors.

Barry scanned the river mouth closely, dubiously. The available channel
was barely wide enough to pass, even with good luck. The breeze blew
straight into the river and across the current, causing a confused
welter of water that made the picking out of a passage doubly difficult.
If the wind had weight enough to overcome the stream, and remained fair,
the passage might be accomplished, given shrewd pilotage; but a very
slight swerve from the straight and narrow course would place the ship
in the grip of that big eddy and inevitably on the bar. That was
unthinkable. It could scarcely be hoped that Leyden's navigator would
repeat such an error when he arrived, and such a mishap would at once
wipe out the advantage gained through Barry's attentions to the schooner
in the dry dock.

Vandersee finished his task and coiled up the new lead line. He stepped
over to Barry and with respectful confidence said:

"If you know the channel, sir, I'll get into the chains with the lead
myself. There's a bad shoal patch this side of the bar, and with the
water slicking over it to the out-draw of that eddy, it looks like deep
water."

"All right, Mr. Vandersee--Oh, thunder!" Barry flung out the expression
in petulance. "Why, you were sent aboard because you know this river,
weren't you? I forgot."

"Yes, sir," smiled Vandersee. "I'm fairly well acquainted here. Shall I
take her in?"

"Yes. Take the wheel and sing out your directions. Where had we better
anchor? Can't go right up, I suppose?"

"Tide's right, sir, and with this breeze, if we manage to avoid swinging
across stream in making past the bar, we can carry our draft two miles
up, anyway. If we have to bring up before that, there's a snug
creek--there, see?--fifty fathom to the eastward of those trees--where
we can lie moored fore and aft to the shore."

Barry took up a position at the fore end of the poop, scanning the
narrow entrance a trifle anxiously. He had no desire to cast his new
command away in making her first port. But Vandersee undoubtedly knew
his business. The _Barang_, for all her slowness, answered to the master
touch on her helm and edged surely up for the deep water until the slop
of the bar bore well abeam.

For a moment the skipper held his breath as she lurched heavily to the
suck of the current. He saw that smooth, flowing patch of oily water,
which the second mat