“Bad as the crossing had been before, it was now a thousand times worse. It was the height of the rainy season; it poured incessantly day and night; the forest was little more than a vast morass and the rivers were swollen, raging torrents. The Indians refused to guide the men, owing partly to the weather conditions and partly as they were disgusted at having been cheated out of their revenge on the Dons and the joy of butchering them, and the buccaneers were in a sad plight. In vain they offered beads, cloth, hatchets and similar articles of trade for guides. They were in despair until one of the men, evidently familiar with women’s ways, dug a sky-blue petticoat from among his loot and slipped it quickly over the head of the chief’s wife. His ruse worked like a charm. The wife added her arguments to those of the buccaneers, and the chief, throwing up his hands in despair, agreed to lead the buccaneers across the Isthmus. But even with their Indian guide their plight was pitiable. They plunged through deep swamps, fought their way through wicked, thorn-covered jungles, hacked and hewed a pathway through the forest, swam swollen rivers, were drenched with rain, infested with ticks, tortured by mosquitoes and almost starved. For days at a time they could not light a fire; they had no shelters; the clothes were torn from their bodies; their sodden shoes fell from their blistered, bleeding feet. Sometimes a whole day’s labor would result in less than two miles of progress and their best time was but five or six miles a day. For twenty-three days they endured every hardship and torture, traveling one hundred and ten miles and losing their way a hundred times despite their Indian guide. On the morning of the eighth day they reached a river so wide and swift none dared to attempt it, and after a deal of argument it was decided to choose a man by lot to swim the torrent with a line. The lot fell upon one George Gayney. Unfortunately for him he was an avaricious fellow and insisted on carrying his share of loot—three hundred pieces of eight—in a bag lashed to his back. When midway across he was whirled about by the current, he became entangled in the rope and was carried under and drowned. But another took his place, the rope was gotten across and, half-drowned, the party reached the opposite bank. A few days later they found poor Gayney’s body with the bag of coins still lashed to his back, but so miserable and spent were the men that they did not even bother to secure the silver but left the corpse there upon the river’s bank, money and all. Another unfortunate was the surgeon, Wafer. By an accidental discharge of some powder he received a serious wound in the leg and, unable to walk, was left with some Indians to recover. While convalescing he used his skill for the Indians’ benefit, and the redmen, impressed by what they considered magic, treated him like a god. To show their gratitude and esteem they stripped him of his ragged