uggested Thurstane.

Glover slapped his thigh, got up, danced a double-shuffle, and sat down
again to consider his job. After a full minute Sweeny caught the idea also
and set up a haw-haw of exultant laughter, which brought back echoes from
the other side of the canon, as if a thousand Paddies were holding revel
there.

"Oh! yees may laugh," retorted Sweeny, "but yees can't laugh us out av
it."

"I'll sheath the whole bottom with bearskin," said Glover. "Then we can
let her grind. It'll be an all day's chore, Capm--perhaps two days."

They passed thirty-six hours in this miserable bivouac. Glover worked
during every moment of daylight. No one else could do anything. A green
hand might break a needle, and a needle broken was a step toward death.
From dawn to dusk he planned, cut, punctured, and sewed with the patience
of an old sailor, until he had covered the rent with a patch of bearskin
which fitted as if it had grown there. Finally the whole bottom was
doubled with hide, the long, coarse fur still on it, and the grain running
from stem to stern so as to aid in sliding over the sand and pebbles of
the shallows.

While Glover worked the others slept, lounged, cooked, waited. There was
no food, by the way, but the hard, leathery, tasteless jerked meat of the
grizzly bears, which had begun to pall upon them so they could hardly
swallow it. Eating was merely a duty, and a disagreeable one.

When Glover announced that the boat was ready for launching, Sweeny
uttered a yelp of joy, like a dog who sees a prospect of hunting.

"Ah, you paddywhack!" growled the skipper. "All this work for you. Punch
another hole, 'n' I'll take yer own hide to patch it."

"I'll give ye lave," returned Sweeny. "Wan bare skin 's good as another.
Only I might want me own back agin for dress-parade."

Once more on the Colorado. Although the boat floated deeper than before,
navigation in it was undoubtedly safer, so that they made bolder ventures
and swifter progress. Such portages, however, as they were still obliged
to traverse, were very severe, inasmuch as the Buchanan was now much above
its original weight. Several times they had to carry one half of their
materials for a mile or more, through a labyrinth of rocks, and then
trudge back to get the other half.

Meantime their power of endurance was diminishing. The frequent wettings,
the shivering nights, the great changes of temperature, the stale and
wretched food, the constant anxi