advantage of every
eddy. Speedily the village of Gatun disappeared in the heavy foliage
behind, and once more the dug-out was afloat in the tropical wilderness.

The river was extremely crooked, and in spots was swift; and Maria and
Francisco worked like Trojans to gain a few miles. (Of course there
was no Gatun Lake here yet. The Chagres had not been dammed for any
Panama Canal, but flowed in a course between high green hills bordered
with lagoons.)

About noon another little hut village appeared in a clearing on the
right bank. This was Dos Hermanos (Two Brothers), where people who
left Gatun early in the morning usually stopped for breakfast, and
their boatmen stopped for gossip. But Maria only shook his head at
sight of it, and he and Francisco paused in their paddling not an
instant. So Dos Hermanos faded from view, behind.

How they worked, those two boatmen--the _muchos caballeros_ (much
gentlemen) as they claimed to be! And certainly white boatmen never
could have served more faithfully. Maria no longer sang his funny
"Yankee Doodle Doo." He and Francisco saved their breath, while the
perspiration rolled from them in streams. All day they paddled,
pausing only twice for a bano, or bath. Other villages were passed,
and one or two ranches; and in due time the sun set and dusk flowed
down from the densely green hills.

With one accord Maria and Francisco swung the canoe in to the nearest
bank, and tethered it to a leaning tree. Maria spoke in Spanish, and
shrugging his shoulders, wearily stretched.

"Rest for two hours, and eat, is it?" quoth Mr. Grigsby, likewise
stretching, and then standing up. "All right. These boys have earned
it."

They certainly had. Still none of the gold seekers' flotilla ahead had
been sighted, but assuredly some of the lead had been cut down. As for
the long-nosed man's canoe, its four paddlers probably had kept it in
the fore, and there was not much chance of overtaking it. Charley was
rather glad. Maria and Francisco seemed to be so angry that there was
no telling what they might not do to the men who had cut them adrift.
And his father and Mr. Grigsby were to be reckoned with, too!

The forest on either side darkened rapidly. New birds and animals
issued, for the night, and filled the jungle with strange, new cries.
The river also was alive with splashes, from fish and reptile and beast
unseen. But after they all had eaten supper of bananas and cold pork
a