“Then what are we to do?” asked Phil, anxiously.
“Dunno,” said Mr. Brewer.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ROLLING STONE.
The announcement so placidly made by Mr. John Brewer that it was impossible for our friends to get up the river until some of the sail-boats or small sloops—the only craft which then navigated that stream—should come down and go up again, gave rather a doleful hue to the state of affairs.
Mr. Brewer stated that when a boat came down that far, she generally went all the way to Jupiter Inlet before she returned, and some of the big ones, when they got down there, went outside, and made a trip to Lake Worth, and they would, of course, be still longer coming back.
The spirits of the boys were a good deal depressed, but Adam did not give up his hope that they might get passage on the mail-boat.
“We can stow ourselves somewhere,” he said, “and when we get to Fort Capron, we’re likely to find a boat that’ll take us the rest of the way.”
But when, an hour after, the mail-boat came in sight, even Adam’s hopes were crushed. It was not larger than a row-boat, with a small sail, and a cabin not three feet high, and besides the young man who sailed her, she already contained two passengers,—a sportsman who was returning north and a negro boy. There was no room for the latter to sit in the after-part of the vessel, and he had to make himself as comfortable as he could on the little bit of deck in front of the mast.
It was so obviously plain that four additional passengers could not get on board that little boat that the subject was not even broached, Adam confining himself to inquiries in regard to the possibilities of there being other boats down the river of which Mr. Brewer had not heard. But the mail-carrier assured him that there were no boats down there that could come up inside of a week, and the sportsman declared that he never would have squeezed himself inside this little tub if there had been any other chance of his getting up the river.