THE NIGHT ADVENTURE ON THE CREEK
If Deck Lyon had particularly noted the actions of his cousin in the
boat he would have noticed that he was less decided in his movements
than usual. He stopped rowing several times in the ten minutes or more
that elapsed after he had invited Deck to go with him; and one who had
been near enough to study his expression would have understood that he
had a purpose before him which he was not prepared to execute under
present circumstances.
He had listened with the closest attention to Mrs. Lyon's report of her
visit at the house of Titus, and he was in a revery after dinner as he
observed Noah and his son walking to the bridge. He waited till he had
seen them seated on the bench, and then he walked slowly to the boat
pier. He was disappointed when his cousin refused to go with him; but he
was not inclined to persuade him to leave his father, for he concluded
that something of importance was under discussion between them.
He was relieved, and all his vigor and animation came back to him as he
pulled to the house landing. Artie was more inclined than Deck to keep
within his own shell; but it was not for the want of native energy, and
both of the boys were disposed to do whatever they had in hand with all
their might. He brought the boat up abreast of the pier, and Deck
stepped into the bow without any further invitation. He took one of the
light pine oars from his cousin.
"If you don't object, Deck, I would like to pull the forward oar," said
Artie, as his companion was seating himself.
"It is all the same to me which oar I take," replied Deck, as he changed
his place.
"I want to talk with you, and I can do it better when you are in front
of me," added Artie, as he shoved the boat out into the stream.
"Where are you going? You seem to have something in your head besides
bones," said Deck curiously.
"Besides the bones I've got a big notion in my head."
"Is it a Yankee or a Kentucky notion, Artie?"
"I picked it up here, and it is Kentuckish. But I don't want to say
anything now; for I'm afraid some one might hear me, more particularly
Uncle Titus," replied the bow oarsman as he took the stroke from his
cousin. "I wonder what brought him over here, for he don't come to
Riverlawn much oftener than he goes to church."
"He acts like a regular Hottentot just out of the woods; and if there
are any bears in Kentucky they would behave like gentlemen compared with
Uncle Titus," added Deck, who proceeded to describe the manner of the
visitor on the bridge when the two brothers met.
"Uncle Titus has got something besides bones in his head this afternoon,
and when he started to come over here he meant business," suggested
Artie. "Something is in the wind."
"I wanted to stay and hear what was said, but Uncle Titus drove me off
as he would have kicked a snake into the creek. He was as grouty and as
savage as a she-lion that had lost all her cubs."
"Did he say anything about that story your mother told at dinner?" asked
Arty.
"Not a word; he drove me off as though I had been a cur dog before he
said a word about anything else," replied Deck, who could not easily
forget the brutal manner of his uncle. "But you have not told me yet
where you are going, Artie. You haven't any fishlines or bait, and I
suppose you are not going a-fishing."
"Not up the creek, for the river suits me better for that business; but
I'm going a-fishing for something that won't swim in the water," replied
the undemonstrative boy.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Deck; and his interest in the
subject caused him to cease rowing, and Artie pulled the boat round so
that it was headed to the shore.
"Pull away, Deck! What are you about? We don't want to stop here," said
Artie with more than his usual vigor.
"I am about nothing; but when I talk with you I like to look you in the
face, for that sometimes tells the story better than your words,"
replied Deck, as he gave way again with his oar. "As I said before, you
have got something besides bones in your head, and I am in a hurry to
know what it is all about. You can't talk it into me through the back of
my head."
"But we don't want to stop here, Richard Coeur de Lyon!" protested
Artie, rather vehemently for him. "Don't you see that we are still in
sight of the bridge, and I would not have Uncle Titus see what we are
about for all the world, with Venus and Mars thrown in. Besides, we have
a long pull before us, and we have no time to spare."
"But I want to know what it is all about," Deck objected. "I am not
going into any conspiracy with my eyes blinded."
"Pull away, Deck! I don't want that Secesher to see us stopping here. We
shall come to the bend in five minutes; and then if you want to stop and
talk I will agree to it, though we haven't any time to waste," suggested
Artie as a compromise.
"One would think you were going to set the river on fire by your talk,"
replied Deck, profoundly mystified by the words, and more by the manner
of his companion.
"We may set the creek on fire before we get through with this job,"
continued Artie, deepening the mystery every minute. "There's Levi
Bedford," he added, as the manager, riding on a rather wild colt, in the
road leading to the fields, came abreast of the boat.
He was too far off to talk to the boys; but he waved his hat to them,
and the boatmen returned the salute, as he continued on his way.
"I wonder where Levi stands in the row that is brewing all over the
country," said Deck. "I don't hear him say anything of any consequence,
though he may have talked to father. He did not come from New England,
and I don't know whether he is a Secesher or not; and it looks as though
he did not mean anybody should know."
"He don't belong to the Home Guards any way," added Artie. "He is a
Tennesseean, and it would not be strange if he had some Secesh notions."
"I don't believe he is going back on father," replied Deck, when the
manager had disappeared and the boat had reached the bend. "Here we are;
we can't see the bridge now, and the bridge can't see us."
"We will stop if you say so; but we may not get back to the house before
to-morrow morning if we spend much time here," said Artie, as he rested
on his oar, and seemed to be very unwilling to use any of the time in
mere talk.
"If the time is so short, why didn't you start out this morning? and why
didn't you let me know sooner that you were going to set the creek on
fire? We might have brought our dinners with us, as we did when we went
to school in Derry, and made a day of it," argued Deck.
"Things were not ready this morning, and I started just as soon as I saw
the star in the east," replied Artie.
"You don't generally wait for the grass to grow under your feet when the
lightning strikes near you."
"The lightning struck while we were at dinner," added Artie quietly.
"But I think we can fix things so that we can talk and keep moving at
the same time," suggested Deck, as he rose from his seat with his oar in
his hand, and stepped over his thwart to the aftermost one.
He seated himself on this thwart, facing the bow. The boys were not
skilled boatmen, though they had practised rowing a good deal on the
river and creek, and they had not trimmed the light craft to the best
advantage for ease and speed, for it was down too much by the head. Deck
asked his cousin to move one seat farther aft, and he complied readily,
in spite of the fact that he was the more skilled of the two in rowing.
In the smallest of the three boats at the lower pier he had often made
long trips alone up the creek, besides those when his cousin was his
companion.
"That lifts the bow higher out of the water," said Artie as he took his
place.
"So much the better," replied Deck, proceeding to give philosophical and
scientific reasons to explain what experienced boatmen know by instinct,
as it were. "Now take the stroke from me, and don't pull any faster than
I do."
Placing himself in an angular position on the thwart, with his right
hand hold of the seat, he began to row with his left. While pulling
alone in the canoe, as the negro rowers called the smallest craft, he
had been inclined to protest against the accepted custom of going
backwards in rowing; and he would gladly have adopted the mechanical
contrivance in use on some of the Northern waters which enabled the
boatmen to pull while facing the bow. He wanted to see where he was
going without turning around, and he had practised rowing in this
position.
Deck was heavier and stronger than his cousin, though hardly as agile.
Artie took the stroke from him, and it was quite as quick as he cared to
row on a long pull. They kept good time, and the boat went along as
rapidly as before.
"Now light your match, and start the fire, Artie. We shall lose no time
by this arrangement, and we shall get back to the house before morning."
"Perhaps, after you understand the nature of the enterprise, you will
not be willing to go with me," added Artie, looking earnestly into the
face of his cousin.
"I can tell better about that after I know what it is," returned Deck,
reciprocating the earnest gaze of the other. "But it is you who are
wasting the time now. Why don't you come to the point without going
around all the buildings on the plantation?"
"You heard the story mother told about the arms and ammunition Uncle
Titus had bought for the Home Guards in order to make himself the
captain of the company?"
"Of course I heard it," and Deck was unwilling to say another word to
increase the preliminaries to the revelation.
"Did you believe it?"
"I did."
"Then you are satisfied that Uncle Titus has a lot of arms hid away
somewhere in this region?" persisted Artie.
"I had my doubts, and I spoke to father about it on the bridge just
before you came along in the boat. He thought that his brother was just
crazy enough to do such a thing; but he thought whiskey had a good deal
to do with the matter, especially in permitting him to tell his wife
about it. Of course Sandy and Orly are mixed up in this business. But
this is an old story by this time, Artie, and you have not told me yet
what you are driving at," said Deck impatiently.
"We are going to look for the arms and ammunition, Deck!" exclaimed the
originator of the enterprise. "Is that talking plainly enough?"
"To look for the arms and ammunition!" almost shouted the after oarsman,
ceasing to use his oar in the astonishment of the moment.
"You insisted on my telling you all at once, and I have done so; you
have stopped rowing."
"What you said was enough to throw a fellow off his base. Do you mean
that you are going on a wild-goose chase all over the State of Kentucky
to look for what may be a mere notion, conjured up by an overdose of
whiskey?" demanded Deck, still resting on his oar.
"Don't get excited, Coeur de Lyon; cold steel cuts best," said Artie.
"And that's the reason father puts his razor into hot water when he is
shaving."
"I don't think anybody is right down sure of anything in this world,"
continued the leader of the enterprise. "I think I am as sure as any
fellow can be in this State of Kentucky, where no man or boy can tell
which end he stands on, that I know where Uncle Titus's arms and
ammunition are hidden."
"You know!" ejaculated Deck.
"I think I know."
"What are you doing up the creek, then? Didn't Aunt Amelia say that the
arms were concealed near the river?" asked Deck, hardly able to breathe
in his excitement.
"I think I know where they are hidden better than she did. If Uncle
Titus told his wife that they were hidden on the river,--and that is
just what aunt said,--her husband intended to cheat her," said Artie
very confidently. "I should say that a dozen glasses of whiskey would
not have made Uncle Titus fool enough to tell anybody where the arms
were concealed, not even his wife; and they don't seem to be a very
loving couple since they came to Kentucky."
"That's so," added Deck.
"Do you remember that time about a fortnight ago when father spoke to me
about being out so late one night, Deck?"
"I remember it; it was on the bridge."
"That night I found out something I could not explain, but I can now,
after what I heard at dinner to-day. But we have eight or ten miles to
pull if we are going to find the arms to-day, and we must be moving,"
added Artie.
Deck rowed again, and they proceeded up the creek, Artie telling his
night adventure by the way.