stions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working
till pretty late to-night. I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay
at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

"A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here."

"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till
nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again
--tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put
a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and
THEN if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe.
Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats
jailed."

"Good," she says, "I'll do it."

"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along
with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and
you must stand by me all you can."

"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!"
she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said
it, too.

"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions
ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear
they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something.
Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're
people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you
how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal
Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court
wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to
Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,
and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here
before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."

I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:

"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't have
to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on
accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they
get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,
and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with
the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before
long. Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in
the w