When Dickory thanked him for allowing him to share his boat the passenger in the stern nodded his head with a jerk and an air which indicated that he took the incident as a matter of course, not to be further mentioned or considered.
The men who rowed the boat were good oarsmen, but they were not thoroughly acquainted with the cove, especially at low tide, and presently they ran upon a sand-bar.

Then uprose the passenger in the stern and began to swear with an ease and facility which betokened long practice.

Dickory did not swear, but he knit his brows and berated himself for not having taken the direction of the course into his own hands, he who knew the river and the cove so well.

The tide was rising but Dickory was too impatient to sit still and wait until it should be high enough to float the boat.

That was his old home, that little house at the head of the cove, and he wanted to get there, he wanted to see it.