But Brian took a minute to scan the map once more and do some mental calculating, and it didn’t come up too terrible. Say it was a hundred miles by river. When they’d landed they’d come down next to where the river left the lake, and Brian had watched the current as it flowed away. It seemed to move about as fast as a person walked—maybe three miles an hour. Of course, that didn’t mean that it would continue to flow at that speed, but it would probably be about the same. If he could get into the current and move with it and stay with it, a hundred miles would take thirty-five or forty hours. He studied it closer on the map and noted that it grew wider as it flowed and that in some places it moved through hilly country—there were contour lines on the map close together, which meant steeper hills. Here the current might even be a little faster. A day and a half, he thought.
