“The men never said another word.  They went for’ard.  It was very curious, but after that they behaved as though they had another skipper.  Yet they were properly frightened by what they thought was ahead of them.  My lot below were always asking me about it, and I handed them the usual ornamental and soothing lies, in which they believed long enough to keep the steam up.  What more could you ask of human nature?  So we kept her plugging along, getting nearer and nearer nowhere.  We turned another of those dramatic corners, later on, though I forget how much later, and ahead of us the river was piled high with rocks, and was tumbling from above.  The Cygnet had had her fair share of luck, but luck could not get her over that.  We were all looking at the white water ahead, and feeling—­at least I was—­that we were being laughed at, when I heard Purdy call me, and turned round.  He was hurrying towards me round the gear, and I thought from the look of him that this complete frustration had turned his mind.  He signed for me to follow him, and I did it, wondering what we should do with a lunatic added to all the rest of it.  I followed him into his cabin.  ‘What can I do?’ he said, and bent over his berth, ‘what can I do?’

“Jessie was curled up on her side in his berth, and there was nothing anyone could do.  I didn’t know she was alive.  But she half opened her eyes, without looking up, and her hand began moving towards Purdy.  ’That you, Bill?’ she said.  Purdy flopped down beside her.  I got out.

“So I took over for a bit—­the mate was no good—­and waited for the next thing.  That affair disheartened the men a lot, and I took it for granted, from their faces as they stood round that figure in a tarpaulin under a tree in the forest, that we were witnessing the end.  There was Purdy, too . . . you couldn’t expect much from him after a funeral.”

Hanson bent over the table, and began tapping it with a finger, and spoke slowly through a surprise he still felt.  “Old Purdy came to me the following morning, and told me what he intended to do.  What do you think?  He reckoned that, though we were still a hundred miles from the headquarters of the consignees, an outpost was probably no farther than just above the falls.  He himself was going to prospect, for there should be a native trail through the woods, past the rapids; and he left me in charge.

“Macandrew was all wrong about that fellow.  In two days he was back.  He had found an outpost, four miles above, but nobody was there, so we could get no help.  He was going to land our cargo of a ton and a half of machinery, and place it on the company’s territory above the falls.  ’You can see for yourself,’ Purdy said to me pathetically, ’that I can’t deliver the Cygnet there.  But I think I am right in making her secure and leaving her here, and reporting it.  What else can I do?  They ought to give me a clean receipt.’