It was quite dark when the Magnolia went out from the pier, though it was a starlight night. The crew pulled very well, for the colonel had taken no little pride in the appearance of his boat on the river. Before his health was impaired he occasionally went to the county town by water; for it was on a branch of the river, and was full thirty miles distant by the winding streams. The crew were powerful men, and had had plenty of practice in former years. But the present planter preferred the vehicles, drawn by fine horses, and the boys used the smaller boats, so the Magnolia had not been manned under the new order of things. Under the vigorous stroke of the negroes she soon passed under the bridge, and headed up the creek. "We are fairly started, and this boat seems to be making at least five miles an hour," said the planter, when he had fully recovered his breath. "More than that, I should say, Major Lyon. I don't believe the hands can keep up this gait all the way; but we shall get to the sink about midnight," replied Levi. "I don't know that there is anything to apprehend in the way of danger," added Mr. Lyon. "I don't know whether there is or not; but I put my revolver and a box of cartridges into my pocket." "I never owned a pistol of any kind, and have hardly fired a gun since I was a boy; but in the storeroom out of the library I found some very nice weapons,--a double-barrelled rifle and a fowling-piece." "The colonel had two revolvers; and they must be somewhere about the library. A few years ago some horse-thieves were in this vicinity, and we kept a watch on the place every night for a couple of weeks," said Levi. "If Uncle Titus put five thousand dollars into these guns and pistols, I should think he would be apt to keep a watch over them," suggested Deck. "A watch would not amount to anything unless he put as many as half a dozen men on it," answered Levi. "But I think he depends upon the secrecy of his movements and the safety of the cavern for the security of the arms. He put the things away in the night, and I don't believe anybody ever goes over the spring road in the darkness. If he put a watch anywhere he would station it on that road at the place where they shifted the boxes from the wagon to the flatboat. But I reckon we can take care of the watch if there is any there." "But the road is about a quarter of a mile from the creek," said Deck. "All of that; and we may pass the place without much of any noise, and no one on the road would be likely to hear us," replied Levi. "I don't think the watch, if there is one, will give us any trouble, for if they hear us, we can keep out of their way; and I don't think they would have any boat in the creek," added the planter. "Your revolver will keep them at a proper distance when we reach the cavern." "I found a shingling hatchet in the boathouse, and I brought that along with me," said Artie. "Are you going to fight with that?" asked Deck.