iet, the Buchanan boat was launched. A
couple of fairish paddles were chipped out of bits of driftwood, and a
towline a hundred feet long was made of lariats. Thurstane further
provisioned the cockle-shell with fishing tackle, a sounding line, his own
rifle, Shubert's musket and accoutrements, a bag of hard bread, and a few
pounds of jerked beef.

"You are not going to make a voyage!" stared Coronado.

"I am preparing for accidents. We may get carried down the river."

"I thought you proposed to keep fast to the shore."

"I do. But the lariats may break."

Coronado said no more. He lighted a cigarito and looked on with an air of
dreamy indifference. He had hit upon a plan for getting rid of Thurstane.

The next question was, who could handle a boat? The lieutenant wanted two
men to keep it out in the current while he used the sounding line and
recorded results.

"Guess I'll do 's well 's the nex' hand," volunteered Captain Glover. "Got
a sore ear, 'n' a hole in my nose, but reckon I'm 'n able-bodied seaman
for all that. _Hev_ rowed some in my time. Rowed forty mile after a whale
onct, 'n' caught the critter--fairly rowed him down. Current's putty
lively. Sh'd say 't was tearin' off 'bout five knots an hour. But guess
I'll try it. Sh'd kinder like to feel water under me agin."

"Captain, you shall handle the ship," smiled Thurstane. "I'll mention you
by name in my report. Who next?"

"Me," yelped Sweeny.

"Can you row, Sweeny?"

"I can, Liftinant."

"You may try it."

"Can I take me gun, Liftinant?" demanded Sweeny, who was extravagantly
fond and proud of his piece, all the more perhaps because he held it in
awe.

"Yes, you can take it, and Glover can have Shubert's. Though, 'pon my
honor, I don't know why we should carry firearms. It's old habit, I
suppose. It's a way we have in the army."

The lieutenant had no sort of anxiety on the score of his enterprise. His
plan was to swing out into the current, and, if the boat proved perfectly
manageable, to cut loose from the towline and paddle across, sounding the
whole breadth of the channel. It seemed easy enough and safe enough. When
he left the Casa Grande after breakfast he contrived to kiss Clara's hand,
but it did not once occur to him that it would be proper to bid her
farewell. He was very far indeed from guessing that in the knot of the
lariat which was fast to the bow of his coracle there was a fatal gash. It
was not suspicion of evil, but merely