other vessels. Even the
Scorpion was yet lying idly at her moorings.

"That's what I call a good start, lads," the old man said when we were
well clear of the flotilla, and the pungy forged ahead in good style
under the force of a fairly strong night breeze. "We're first under
sail, an' it'll go hard if we don't come to anchor off Pig Point ahead
of any one else."

"Why do you suppose this move is being made?" I asked, for it smacked
much of running away from the enemy, to retreat so far up stream, and
Darius had made us believe that Joshua Barney never retreated.

"The commander has got some good plan in his head, an' it'll come out
before we're many days older," the old man replied confidently.

"But surely we're tryin' to get away from the enemy," Jerry
suggested.

"Ay, it has that look just now, I'll admit; but you'll see some big
scheme in it very soon, or I'm a Dutchman, which I ain't."

"There's a boat dead ahead, with four men rowin' an' one steerin',"
Jim Freeman, who had stationed himself in the tow as a lookout, came
aft to report.

"Some smarty who's tryin' to make the anchorage first," Darius
growled; "but with this wind we can sail two miles to his one, so it
won't be that craft which will beat us in."

By this time we were well up with the boat, and to our surprise it was
Commodore Barney himself who hailed:

"Sloop ahoy! Pass a line, and I'll come aboard."

He got the line smartly enough, and when he came over the rail Darius
saluted, as he said:

"We counted you were aboard the Scorpion, sir."

"That schooner won't get off for ten minutes or more, and I allowed
that the other vessels would be handled in the same leisurely fashion,
so, I pulled ahead, thinking to be at the rendezvous before the
flotilla was well under way. You lads obeyed orders smartly."

"It's a way they have, sir," Darius said with a grin, as he looked
over the rail to see that the commodore's boat was being towed where
she would be the least drag on the pungy.

Then it was that I tried to play the host, by asking the commander if
he would go into the cabin.

"It isn't a very nice place, sir; but it's clean, and you may be able
to get some sleep."

"I'll venture to say it's as good a sea-parlor as I, or any other man,
deserves, lad; but I'm not needing sleep just now, therefore will stay
on deck."

Then he fell to pacing the starboard quarter, as if he had been on his
own ship at sea, and we lads gathered well