The remainder of the raft’s trip was without important incident. It was a novel journey, not too monotonous to be boresome, and it came to a successful end the second day in the little cove where the schooner’s cargo had been landed nearly a month before. They grounded the raft without attracting the attention of any one on the schooner, which still lay anchored in the same spot in the harbor. Brent and Casimiro boarded the ship the next morning. Her captain and crew had grown heartily tired of their long idleness, and they welcomed the two men heartily. The work of landing the boxes intended for containing the gold was begun at once. Meantime, Brent instructed the mate and one of the sailors of the schooner to take a small boat and make careful soundings of the entrance and anchorage in the harbor. They were to prepare a rough chart of the small bay, which would serve for navigating the steamship in which the young man expected to return later in the year. He did not explain, however, the purpose for which he desired the survey. He landed all the boxes which had been made in Buenos Ayres. Twenty, which he intended to use at once, he put upon the raft, the others he stored upon shore where they could be filled during his absence. He did not fill his twenty boxes quite full of gold. He spread a covering of earth and gravel over the surface of the metal before screwing down the cover. Within three days his cargo was aboard ship, the harbor soundings were finished, and he was ready to sail. The task of landing the rest of the gold from the raft was left to the Indians. The voyage north was begun on the 12th of January. Buenos Ayres was reached after an uneventful trip three weeks later. The twenty enormously heavy boxes were transshipped to a steamer which was to sail in three days for Rio Janeiro. In the three days, Brent purchased a large supply of wire rope, spikes, saws, anchors, and other raft-building material which Fraser believed he would need, and sent the schooner back with them to the Patagonian coast. Then he took passage north. He lost a week at Rio Janeiro, waiting for a boat bound to New York, and it was finally the 15th of March when he found himself one morning alongside the wharf at Roberts’ Stores in Brooklyn. The custom-house inspector who came aboard did not seem particularly interested in Brent’s twenty cases of “mineral ores.” The owner removed the cover of one of them and the inspector poked his fingers into the harmless looking contents and promptly passed the lot. This ordeal passed, Brent hurried to the ferry and a few minutes later stepped ashore in his native city. CHAPTER IV. THE VOYAGE OF THE RICHMOND.