“Jest so,” panted Glover.  “You’re up stream.  Can you raise your eend?  We mustn’t capsize her; we might lose the flooring.”

Thurstane stooped slowly and cautiously until he had got his shoulder under the bow.

“Easy!” called Glover.  “Awful easy!  Don’t break her back.  Don’t upset me.”

Gently, deliberately, with the utmost care, Thurstane straightened himself until he had lifted the bow of the boat clear of the current.

“Now I’ll hoist,” said the skipper.  “You turn her slowly—­jest the least mite.  Don’t capsize her.”

It was a Herculean struggle.  There was still a ponderous weight of water in the boat.  The slight frame sagged and the flexible siding bulged.  Glover with difficulty kept his feet, and he could only lift the stern very slightly.

“You can’t do it,” decided Thurstane.  “Don’t wear yourself out trying it.  Hold steady where you are, while I let down.”

When the boat was restored to its level it floated higher than before, for some of the water had drained out.

“Now lift slowly,” directed Thurstane.  “Slow and sure.  She’ll clear little by little.”

A quiet, steady lift, lasting perhaps two or three minutes, brought the floor of the boat to the surface of the current.

“It’s wearing,” said the lieutenant, cheering his worried fellow-laborer with a smile.  “Stand steady for a minute and try to rest.  You, Sweeny, move in toward the bank.  Hold on to your boat like the devil.  If the water deepens, sing out.”

Sweeny, gripping his lariat desperately, commenced a staggering march over the cobble-stone bottom, his anxious nose pointed toward a beach of bowlders beneath the southern precipice.

“Now then,” said Thurstane to Glover, “we must get her on our heads and follow Sweeny.  Are you ready?  Up with her!”

A long, reeling hoist set the Buchanan on the heads of the two men, one standing under the bow and one under the stern, their arms extended and their hands clutching the sides.  The beach was forty yards away; the current was swift and as opaque as chocolate; they could not see what depths might gape before them; but they must do the distance without falling, or perish.

“Left foot first,” shouted the officer.  “Forward—­march!”

CHAPTER XXIX.

When the adventurers commenced their tottering march toward the shore of the Colorado, Sweeny, dragging the clumsy bearskin boat, was a few yards in advance of Thurstane and Glover, bearing the canvas boat.

Every one of the three had as much as he could handle.  The Grizzly, pulled at by the furious current, bobbed up and down and hither and thither, nearly capsizing Sweeny at every other step.  The Buchanan, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds when dry, and now somewhat heavier because of its thorough wetting, made a heavy load for two men who were hip deep in swift water.