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 tide was two feet; the next night's rise was four feet. Ducks and geese were many. But it rained almost every day, and every morning a fog hung low.

On the morning of November 7 the camp rose and breakfasted in a wet mist so dense that it hung on all sides like a gray curtain.

"At this rate," quoth Pat, as the canoes headed out into the silence, "we're liable to get half way to Chiny afore we know we're on the Paycific at all."

"I do believe I smell salt, though," asserted George Shannon, sniffing. "Sa-ca-ja-we-a's been insisting, too, that she could hear a 'boom-boom.'"

"Listen!" bade Pat—and they paused on their oars. Peter thought that he also could hear a "boom-boom," low and dull, but he wasn't certain. They went on.

The captains' boat was being piloted by a Wah-kia-cum Indian, now: a squat ugly man who wore a queer round jacket that, according to the men, had come from a ship. The river was growing wider, the fog was thinning and lifting—on a sudden the crew of the captains' boat waved their hats, pointed before, cheered wildly. The cheer passed from boat to boat. For the fog ahead had swirled into fragments, and below it was an expanse of tumbling gray water on which the sun was trying to shine. Occasionally sounded a muffled "boom," like the faint growl of summer thunder.

The Pacific Ocean! But they did not reach it this