a column of distant smoke.  Perhaps it was a hunter; it could hardly be the ranch.  As we could do nothing with the boat, we concluded to walk over that way.  It was many miles distant.  Taking everything we had, including our last lunch, we started our walk, leaving a cloth on a pole to mark the point where our boat was anchored.  But after going four miles it still seemed no nearer than before, so we returned.  It was evening.  The water was drinkable again; that was something to be thankful for.  By ten o’clock that night the tide would come up again.  After dark we found that our boat was being beached.  So we ran it down and began pulling it along over a shoal reaching far out from the shore.  As we tugged I was sure I heard a call somewhere up the river.  What kind of a land was this!  Could it be that my senses were all deceiving me as my eyes were fooled by the mirage?  I had heard it, Al had not, and laughed when I said that I had.  We listened and heard it again, plainly this time, “Can’t you men find a landing?  We have a good one up here,” it said.

We asked them to row down, advising them to keep clear of the shoal.  We waded out, guided by their voices, in the pitch darkness and neared the boat.

One shadowy form sat in either end of a flat-bottomed boat.  There was a mast, and the boat was fitted for two oarsmen as well.  Evidently the load was heavy, for it was well down in the water.  The sail cloth was spread over all the boat, excepting one end where there was a small sheet-iron stove, with a pan of glowing wood coal underneath.  The aroma of coffee came from a pot on the stove.  As I steadied myself at the bow I touched a crumpled flag,—­Mexican, I thought,—­but I could not see.  Both figures sat facing us, with rifles in their hands, alert and ready for a surprise.  Smugglers!  I thought; guns, I imagined.  They could not see our faces in the dark, neither could we distinguish theirs.  Judging by their voices they were young men.  I thought from the first that they were Mexicans, but they talked without accent.  They could see that we carried no arms, but their vigilance was not relaxed.  They asked what our trouble was and we told them of the beached boat, what we had been doing, and why we were there.  They said they were out for a little sight-seeing trip down in the Gulf.  They might go to Tiburone Island.  One of them wondered if it was true that the natives were cannibals.  He said he would not care about being shot, but he would hate to be put in their stew-pot.  We asked them how much water they carried.  A fifteen-gallon keg was all They hoped to get more along the coast.  It is quite well known there is none.  They professed to be uninformed about the country, did not know there was a ranch or a tidal bore, and thanked us for our information about the tides, and the advice to fill their keg when the water was lowest, which would be in half an hour.  They could not sell any provisions, but gave us a quart of flour.