ore its nose was turned, and it
began to drop at an easy pace down the river. In cover of the bank
Chippy was sculling his best. He had seen how the warehouse was
robbed; he meant to see where the plunder was taken.

Beyond Elliotts' warehouse there were only two or three scattered
buildings, and then the river-shore stretched away empty and deserted.
For nearly a mile the men pulled steadily down, and left Chippy a long
way behind. But the night was brightening fast; the moon was coming
up, and he could see the dark spot upon the water which meant the
gliding boat laden with plunder.

Then the boat turned and came towards the shore on the scout's side.
It crossed his line of sight, and disappeared as if into the bank.

'Gone up Fuller's Creek,' said Chippy to himself, and sculled harder
than ever. Fuller's Creek was a wide, deep backwater, never used
nowadays for any active purpose, though occasionally an old hulk was
towed there, and left to rot. Chippy supposed that his men had pulled
up to the very top of the creek, where there was a deserted
landing-stage, and he put all the strength of his wiry frame into
driving his boat down to the creek and up it as hard as he could go.

He entered the broad, dark water-mouth, for the moon was not yet
shining into the creek, and sculled into its shadow. Half-way up, a
dark bulk loomed high in his path, and he swung the nose of his craft
to port, to pass round the _Three Spires_, an old barquentine left to
rot in Fuller's Creek out of the way of the river traffic.

The _Three Spires_, named from the three chief churches of the town,
whose steeples rose high above the roofs of Bardon, was a broad, roomy
old craft, and had carried many a good cargo in her time. But she was
now past her work, and, her spars, rigging, and raffle all torn away,
her hulk lay abandoned in Fuller's Creek, for the breakers-up did not
want her.

It was mere luck that Chippy threw his skiff's nose over to port, for
he was bearing straight for the Three Spires as she lay end on, and
port or starboard was all one in point of distance as regarded sculling
round her. But he threw his bow over to port, and thereby made a
striking discovery. For beside the great bulk lay a small bulk, and
the latter was a boat swinging to the shattered taffrail of the _Three
Spires_ by her painter. Chippy checked his way, and the two boats
floated side by side on the quiet, dark backwater, with the hull of the
d