“’Twon’t dew to give it up while we float, Major,” said Glover, breveting the lieutenant by way of cheering him.

“I don’t give it up,” replied Thurstane; “but I had a duty to do there, and now I can’t do it.”

“There’s dooties to be ’tended to here, I reckon,” suggested Glover.

“They will be done,” said the officer, raising his head and settling his face.  “How can we help you?”

“Don’t seem to need much help.  The river doos the paddlin’; wish it didn’t.  No ’casion to send anybody aloft.  I’ll take a seat in the stern ‘n’ mind the hellum.  Guess that’s all they is to be done.”

“You dum paddywhack,” he presently reopened, “what d’ye break yer paddle for?”

“I didn’t break it,” yapped Sweeny indignantly.  “It broke itself.”

“Well, what d’ye say y’ could paddle for, when y’ couldn’t?”

“I can paddle.  I paddled as long as I had anythin’ but a sthick.”

“Oh, you dum landlubber!” smirked Glover.  “What if I should order ye to the masthead?”

“I wouldn’t go,” asseverated Sweeny.  “I’ll moind no man who isn’t me suparior officer.  I’ve moindin’ enough to do in the arrmy.  I wouldn’t go, onless the liftinint towld me.  Thin I’d go.”

“Guess y’ wouldn’t now.”

“Yis I wud.”

“But they an’t no mast.”

“I mane if there was one.”

This kind of babble Glover kept up for some minutes, with the sole object of amusing and cheering Thurstane, whose extreme depression surprised and alarmed him.  He knew that the situation was bad, and that it would take lots of pluck to bring them through it.

“Capm, where d’ye think we’re bound?” he presently inquired.  “Whereabouts doos this river come out?”

“It runs into the Colorado of the West, and that runs into the head of the Gulf of California.”

“Californy!  Reckon I’ll git to the diggins quicker ‘n I expected.  Goin’ at this rate, we’ll make about a hundred ‘n’ twenty knots a day.  What’s the distance to Californy?”

“By the bends of the river it can’t be less than twelve hundred miles to the gulf.”

“Whew!” went Glover.  “Ten days’ sailin’.  Wal, smooth water all the way?”

“The San Juan has never been navigated.  So far as I know, we are the first persons who ever launched a boat on it.”

“Whew!  Why, it’s like discoverin’ Ameriky.  Wal, what d’ye guess about the water?  Any chance ‘f its bein’ smooth clear through?”

“The descent to the gulf must be two or three thousand feet, perhaps more.  We can hardly fail to find rapids.  I shouldn’t be astonished by a cataract.”

Glover gave a long whistle and fell into grave meditation.  His conclusion was:  “Can’t navigate nights, that’s a fact.  Have to come to anchor.  That makes twenty days on’t.  Wal, Capm, fust thing is to fish up a bit ’f driftwood ‘n’ whittle out ’nother paddle.  Want a boat-pole, too, like thunder.  We’re awful short ’f spars for a long voyage.”