“And now, Sergeant,” said Cap, as soon as he found himself master of the deck, “you will just have the goodness to give me the courses and distance, that I may see the boat keeps her head the right way.”

“I know nothing of either, brother Cap,” returned Dunham, not a little embarrassed at the question.  “We must make the best of our way to the station among the Thousand Islands, ’where we shall land, relieve the party that is already out, and get information for our future government.’  That’s it, nearly word for word, as it stands in the written orders.”

“But you can muster a chart —­ something in the way of bearings and distances, that I may see the road?”

“I do not think Jasper ever had anything of the sort to go by.”

“No chart, Sergeant Dunham!”

“Not a scrap of a pen even.  Our sailors navigate this lake without any aid from maps.”

“The devil they do!  They must be regular Yahoos.  And do you suppose, Sergeant Dunham, that I can find one island out of a thousand without knowing its name or its position, without even a course or a distance?”

“As for the name, brother Cap, you need not be particular, for not one of the whole thousand has a name, and so a mistake can never be made on that score.  As for the position, never having been there myself, I can tell you nothing about it, nor do I think its position of any particular consequence, provided we find the spot.  Perhaps one of the hands on deck can tell us the way.”

“Hold on, Sergeant —­ hold on a moment, if you please, Sergeant Dunham.  If I am to command this craft, it must be done, if you please, without holding any councils of war with the cook and cabin-boy.  A ship-master is a ship-master, and he must have an opinion of his own, even if it be a wrong one.  I suppose you know service well enough to understand that it is better in a commander to go wrong than to go nowhere.  At all events, the Lord High Admiral couldn’t command a yawl with dignity, if he consulted the cockswain every time he wished to go ashore.  No sir, if I sink, I sink! but, d—–­ me, I’ll go down ship-shape and with dignity.”

“But, brother Cap, I have no wish to go down anywhere, unless it be to the station among the Thousand Islands whither we are bound.”

“Well, well, Sergeant, rather than ask advice —­ that is, direct, barefaced advice —­ of a foremast hand, or any other than a quarter-deck officer, I would go round to the whole thousand, and examine them one by one until we got the right haven.  But there is such a thing as coming at an opinion without manifesting ignorance, and I will manage to rouse all there is out of these hands, and make them think all the while that I am cramming them with my own experience!  We are sometimes obliged to use the glass at sea when there is nothing in sight, or to heave the lead long before we strike soundings.  When a youngster, sailed two v’y’ges with a man who navigated his ship pretty much by the latter sort of information, which sometimes answers.”