"Why?" ventured I timidly, almost pleadingly; "isn't there—uh—isn't there—uh—water enough?"
"Water enough—yes!" growled the personage who invented the longest river in the world and therefore knew what he was talking about. "Plenty of water—but you won't find it!"
Now as the Atom slid into the stream, I thought of the captain's words. Since that time the river had fallen three feet. We drew eighteen inches.
Sixty-five days after that oraculous utterance of the captain, the Kid and I, half stripped, sun-burned, sweating at the oars, were forging slowly against a head wind at the mouth of the Cheyenne, sixteen hundred miles below the head of navigation. A big white and red steamer was creeping up stream over the shallow crossing of the Cheyenne's bar, sounding every foot of the water fallen far below the usual summer level.
It was the snag-boat. Crossing her bows and drifting past her slowly, I stood up and shouted to the party in the pilot house:
"I want to speak to the captain."
He came out on the hurricane deck—the man who invented the river. He was still stiff and proud, but a swift smile crossed his face as he looked down upon us, half-naked and sun-blackened there in our dinky little craft.
"Captain," I cried, and perhaps there was the least vainglory in me; "I talked to you at Benton."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I have found that water!"