d again and facing the crowd. "After I have been among you awhile,
I shall know who my friends are. I did hear some talk of a heavy vessel
that is to be added to the defensive force of the city, and which might
some time go outside and scatter the blockading fleet, but I didn't go
up to take a look at her. I couldn't spare the time. She'll need a crew
when she is completed, and if I leave the settlement between two
days--if I am here to-night and gone to-morrow morning--my friends
needn't worry over me."

"We understand. You'll be on board an armed vessel fighting for your
principles."

"You're right I will. Now, George," he added, turning to the clerk and
slamming his saddle-bags upon the counter, "I want one of those pockets
filled with plug tobacco, and the other stuffed with the gaudiest
bandanas you've got in the store."

The clerk took the saddle-bags, and when they were passed back to their
owner a few minutes later, they were so full that it was a matter of
some difficulty to buckle the flaps. Then the boys said good-bye and
left the store. They started off in a lope, but when they were a mile or
so from the town and alone on the road, they drew their horses down to a
walk, and Jack said:

"Do they take me for one of them or not?"

"They pretend to, but everybody is so sly and treacherous that you can't
place reliance upon anything," answered his brother. "What you said
about leaving home between two days was good. It will help me, for I can
refer to it when you are gone. Now, Jack, you must put up that rebel
flag the minute you get home. I told Allison about it, and if he should
ride out some day and find the flag wasn't there, he would suspect that
we are not just the sort of folks he has been led to believe."

"All right! And our next hard work must be to hide your money and paint
that schooner of yours. We'll go about it openly and above board. We'll
say she is scaling,--if she isn't she ought to be, for it is a long time
since she saw a brush,--and that she needs another coat of paint to
protect her from the weather."

This programme was duly carried out. Of course Mrs. Gray protested,
mildly, when Jack brought down his rebel flag, and, after spreading it
upon the floor so that his mother could have a good view of it,
proceeded to hang it upon the sitting-room wall; but when the boys told
her why they thought it best to place it there, she became silent and
permitted them to do as they pleased. Whil