ou and your maw down on me, did he?"
inquired Hanson, when he observed these movements.

"I shouldn't like for to lose my place just because I am strong for the
Union and dead against secession."

"If you lose your place on that account, it'll be because Colonel Shelby
and his friends will have it so," answered Marcy. "You are hired to do
an overseer's work; and as long as you attend to that and nothing else
you will have no trouble with me. You may depend upon that."

"But before you go I'd like to know, pine-plank, whether you are
friendly to me or not," continued Hanson, who was obliged to confess to
himself that he had not learned the first thing, during the interview,
that could be used against Marcy or his mother.

"I am a friend to you in this way," was the answer. "If I found you out
there in the woods cold and hungry, and hiding from soldiers who were
trying to make a prisoner of you, I would feed and warm you; and I
wouldn't care whether you had a gray jacket or a blue coat on."

"He's a trifle the cutest chap I've run across in many a long day,"
muttered the overseer, as Marcy turned his filly about and rode away. "I
couldn't make him tell whether he was Union or secesh, although I give
him all the chance in the world, and he didn't say "money" a single
time. Now, what's to be done? If the money is there and Beardsley is
bound to have it, he'd best be doing something before that sailor gets
back, for they say he's lightning and will fight at the drop of the hat.
I reckon I'd better make some excuse to ride over town so't I can see
Colonel Shelby."

"I think I have laid that little scheme most effectually," was what
Marcy Gray said to himself as he rode away from the stump on which the
overseer was sitting. "They haven't got a thing out of me, and I have
left the matter in their own hands. If there is anything done toward
getting Hanson away from this country (and I wish to goodness there
might be), Shelby and his hypocritical gang can have the fun of doing
it, and shoulder all the responsibility afterward."

But what was the object of the plot? That was what "banged" Marcy, and
he told his mother so after he had given her a minute description of his
brief interview with the overseer. Was it possible that there were some
strong Union men in the neighborhood, and that Beardsley hoped Marcy
would incur their enmity by discharging Hanson on account of his alleged
principles? Marcy knew better than to belie