stood that
we were counted as two of the three to whom he referred.

"I'm agreeable to anythin' you figger out, Darius," Bill Jepson said
as he wrung the water from his scanty clothing.

"Well then, Amos an' Jerry shall take you in the canoe, an' start for
Nottingham within the next ten minutes. Since they left to look for
you I've been fixin' up a sail for the craft, an' with a breeze like
this you ought'er be well across the Potomac by sunrise."

"Don't you need the lads with you?" Jepson asked as Jerry and I looked
at each other in surprise, and, perhaps, displeasure.

"Yes; but not so much as I need to hear from the commodore after he
knows what you've got to say."

"The Britishers are certain to search this craft 'twixt now an'
to-morrow night, an' seein' the canoe is gone, may smell a rat," the
deserter suggested.

"I reckoned all that in with my figgerin'. If you start for the
Patuxent river I shall run over to the Delaware shore an' pick up a
boat somewhere."

"They knew how much of a crew you had when the oyster bargain was
made."

"Well, what if the boys went ashore to go home for a couple of days?
That yarn will go down, I reckon, an' if it don't I'll have to take
the chances for the sake of gettin' you to Joshua Barney as soon as it
can be done."

Darius had evidently considered the plan well, and I understood that
nothing would turn him from it unless one of us flatly refused to
carry it into execution, which, considering all the importance of
getting information to the commodore, I was not prepared to do. At the
same time, the idea of going back to Nottingham in no better craft
than our canoe, was by no means to my liking.

"If you've got it worked out, Darius Thorpe, an' allow it should be
done, I'm ready," Bill Jepson said, "an' it ain't noways strange that
I should be willin' to jump at anythin', considerin' I'm like to go to
the yard-arm if captured now."

The old man looked inquiringly at Jerry, and my partner said slowly
much as if not being exactly certain what he thought of the scheme:

"I'm willin' to go if it so be you want to keep the pungy here; but
'cordin' to my way of thinkin' the chances are against our gettin'
there in the canoe."

"You can do it if the wind don't breeze up, an' it ain't likely to at
this time of the year." Then, as if considering the question settled
absolutely, Darius cried out to Jim, "Have you stowed everythin' in
the canoe?"

"Ay, sir, an' I've tak