“Well,” said Adam, “I thought we might get passage in a mail-boat, if one happened to come along at the right time; and if it didn’t, I thought there’d be some boat or other goin’ up the river to-day that would take us.” “Well, if them’s your kalkerlations,” said Mr. Brewer, gently rubbing his knees and looking out over the water, “I don’t think you’re going to get up at all.” “Not get up at all!” cried the boys; and Adam looked puzzled. “Well, not for a week or so, anyway,” said Mr. Brewer, his eyes still fixed upon the rippling waters. “To be sure, the mail-boat will be along to-day, and she’ll stop if she’s hailed, but she can’t carry you all, and as for other boats, the long and short of it is, there ain’t none gone down, and there can’t none come up. There was a boat went up yesterday with vegetables from Lake Worth, but she won’t be back for a week, and then it’ll be a good while before she goes up again. Every boat that’s been down the river this month has gone up, and they tell me there ain’t nothin’ at Jupiter but the little sloop that belongs to the light-house keeper, and she’s hauled up to have a new mast put in her.” “Then what are we to do?” asked Phil, anxiously. “Dunno,” said Mr. Brewer. [Illustration] 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.