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.'

"It was funny enough, that anxiety about a ship and machinery where there
was nothing but monkeys and parrots, but I agreed with him, and we got to
work landing those packages of mining gear, which only an expert could
understand, in a place where nothing was likely to happen till the Last
Day. The way we sweated over it! And then warped the stuff with snatch
blocks through four miles of jungle. Yes; and buried two men of our
company on the way. But we did get the cargo on to the company's damned
land at last, and a nice lot of half-naked scarecrows we looked, with
nothing to fill our hollow cheeks but whiskers. There the name of the
place was all right, 'Tres Irmaos,' painted over a shed. The shed was
falling to pieces. There was nobody about. Nothing but a little open
space, and the forest around, and the sun blazing down at us.

"We pushed on for headquarters, Purdy leading us. A hundred miles to go!
I don't know how we did it. Three more died, including the mate, but we