edge grew a tangled mass of slimy roots, rising to gnarled,
moss-covered trunks, monstrosities rather than trees. Even at that
distance suspicious logs could be seen lying half in, half out of the
water; but a space ten yards wide, including some of the biggest and
ugliest of the trees, seemed bare of those logs.

Barry sent a hail along to the forecastle to avast heaving on the cable;
for some of the watch had remained on deck, when the rest went below to
pass up lines, and were now taking spasmodic, aimless jerks at the
windlass. The mate drove his brown-skinned men to marvellous feats with
coiling lines, determined to be ready with his part when the boat was
ready. He had not heard Vandersee's report on the boat.

Now on the port side, that farthest from the bar, heaps of cleverly
faked-down small lines were ranged along the waterways, in preparation
for any emergency of drifting boat. The big Manila hawser lay coiled on
the fore hatch, all ready to bend on when a small line was safely
ashore. All these things Barry took in with quick professional
perception. But now he was stumped. He was the last man on earth to send
a man where he himself dare not go; and those filthy, suspicious logs
had only too well corroborated the second mate's hint of alligators.

He was aroused from his contemplation of them by a shout from Rolfe,
echoed by Vandersee, and followed immediately by a tremendous splash and
the whiz of small line running over a teakwood rail. A soft-eyed
Javanese seaman worked feverishly near the fore rigging, flinging coil
after coil of line overboard until the end was at hand. Then he stooped
swiftly, seized the end of a fresh coil, and stood ready to repeat.

Barry looked for Little now and missed him. He ran to the side. An
excited chattering among the crew forward, and gesticulating arms,
directed his gaze, and he gasped with amazed admiration. Surging through
the muddy tide with a powerful trudgeon stroke, making a wake of
swirling bubbles across which snaked the black coils of a heaving line,
Little headed for the shore. Once he disappeared, as a freak of churning
waters gripped several coils of line and jerked him back and under. But
the innocent cause of all the trouble made no false estimate of his
ability to rectify his error. He forged straight for his mark--that mass
of slimy roots and mossy trunks--and soon he was seen to rise waist high
from the water, stumble heavily as his feet sank deep in th