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.