tump as she sighted the dormer windows of the old house on the
hill, yet she came in good time to the clear channel and, passing the
tangled underwood that hid the forsaken tomb, she reached the mouth of
the creek before the tide turned and started up the James on the last
of the flood.

Weyanoke plantation is a peninsula lying in a sharp elbow of the river,
so that it was a run of a few miles from the mouth of Kittewan Creek,
on one side of the peninsula, around to the Weyanoke pier on the other
side.

Upon reaching the sharp bend in the river at the point of the
peninsula, we could see one reason anyway why Grant should have chosen
this as a place for crossing the James. Here, the banks of the river
suddenly draw close so that the stream is less than half a mile wide.
However, it makes up in depth what it has lost in width, the channel at
this point being from eighty to ninety feet deep. Even at the last of
the tide the water here flowed swiftly and with ugly swirls and oily
whirlpools that made the river seem vicious.

Now, we ran toward the southern shore to look at the ruins of a fort
built in the War of 1812. The sun was setting beyond the high bluff
that backed the fort, and the place lay blurred in the shadow; but
apparently time, and perhaps the hard knocks of war, had not left much
of Fort Powhatan. Two creeks that enter the James near the old fort
received our close scrutiny, for every side stream tempted us. We would
wonder how far Gadabout could follow each winding way, and what she
might find up there.

[Illustration: UPPER WEYANOKE.]

A short run farther up the river took us abreast the pier at Upper
Weyanoke; and, passing around it, we cast anchor within a stone's throw
of the plantation home.

[Illustration: AT ANCHOR OFF WEYANOKE.]

We sat out in the cockpit a long time that night enjoying the strangely
quiet mood of the Powhatan. The old river flowed so peacefully that it
mirrored all the sky above; and we looked down into a maze of stars
with the sea-tide running through. Then a blinding light put out all
our stars as the night boat from Richmond came down the river and
trained her searchlight so that it picked Gadabout out of the darkness.
Our whistle saluted with three good blasts. The searchlight responded
by making three profound bows--so profound that they reached from the
high heavens down to the water at our feet. Then, it suddenly whipped
to the front to pick out the steamer's course