another count. But I
'll come to that some other time. I 'll need to be off now.'

'Your horse is done,' protested Ross, 'and you are pretty well done
yourself.'

'I 'm not that far through,' said Dunbar.

'Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres and wait here until you can get a
reply? Purvis may have got on board the train somewhere else, and be
at Buenos Ayres now.'

'Yes, that will do,' said Dunbar. He dispatched his telegram by one of
the peons, who rode off with it across the camp. In spite of fatigue,
Dunbar, with his nervous energy unimpaired, looked as though he would
like to have ridden with the telegram himself. Reflecting, however,
that there was considerable work still before him, he submitted to
stretching himself on a _catre_ and after a short doze and a bath and
some breakfast he took up again the thread of his story.

'I 'll not bother you with an account of E. W. Smith's life,' he
remarked, 'although there is a good deal in it that would surprise you.
I 'll keep to the story of the _Rosana_ as time is short.'

Mr. Dunbar took his faithful friend--his short pipe--from its red-lined
case, filled it with tobacco, and began to draw luxuriously.

'The _Rosana_ sprang a leak after her first day out, on her run down
the coast, and was lost in twenty fathoms of water. She only carried
one boat, and that boat was seen by myself half-burned, but with a bit
of her name in gold-leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter was the
captain of the boat, and E. W. Smith was clerk and general manager.
Every one knew he cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated the
captain too, when he could; and it generally suited him to make Tranter
drunk when they were in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I
suppose a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He was a man
who always kept large sums in hand in case of finding himself in a
tight place. Did I mention,' said Dunbar, 'that he could not row,
though, of course, Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted for steering.'

'I don't understand the story,' said Ross, leaning forward. 'You say
that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and
that Purvis could not row?'

'I am coming to that,' said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the _Rosana_
carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and
the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as
men use to go to and from the shore when they are in har