them he thought to be Union,
but it turned out that they wasn't. They was true to the flag of the
'Federacy."

"What do Colonel Shelby and the rest want me to do?" inquired Marcy,
catching at an idea that just then flashed through his mind. "If they
will write me a note stating the facts of the case and asking me to
discharge Hanson, I will attend to it before the sun goes down."

"Well, you see they don't keer to take a hand in the furse at all,
seein' that there's so many Union folks in the settlement," said Kelsey.
"They've got nice houses an' nigger quarters, an' they don't want 'em
burned up."

"But they are willing that I should get into trouble by discharging
Hanson, and put myself in the way of having my house and quarters
destroyed, are they?" exclaimed the boy, his face growing red with
indignation, although, as he afterward told his mother, there wasn't
really anything to arouse his indignation. "You may tell those gentlemen
that if they want the overseer run off the plantation, they can come
here and do it. If the Union men are as vindictive as Colonel Shelby
seems to think they are, I don't care to get them down on me."

"But the Union folks won't pester you uns," said Kelsey, speaking before
he thought.

"Ah! Why won't they?"

"Kase--kase they think you're one of 'em."

"I don't see how they can think so when they know that I belong to a
Confederate privateer."

"Them men, whose names I give ye a minute ago, thought that mebbe you'd
be willing to turn Hanson loose when you heared how he had been swingin'
his tongue about that there money."

Kelsey had come to the point at last. He looked hard at Marcy to see
what effect the words would have upon him, and Marcy returned his gaze
with an impassive countenance, although he felt his heart sinking within
him.

"What money?" he demanded, in so steady a voice that the visitor was
fairly staggered. The latter believed that there was rich booty hidden
somewhere about that old house, and he hoped in time to have the
handling of some of it.

"I mean the money your maw got when she went to Richmon' an' around,"
replied the man, who, in coon hunters' parlance, began to wonder if he
wasn't "barking up the wrong tree."

"Can you prove that she brought any money back with her?"

"No, I can't," answered Kelsey, in a tone which said as plainly as words
that he wished he could. "I--me--I mean that the neighbors suspicion
it."

"Oh, that's it. Let those o