other heavy blow,
and jumped to his feet with a fierce exclamation on his lips.

"So them's the fellers that fooled me, are they?" he shouted, as soon as
the pain in his leg would permit him to speak. "You haven't
disremembered how they offered me a cool hundred dollars in gold if I
would look around in the woods an' find the ladder or the stairs that
led down to that railroad, have you, Susie? If it hadn't been for Riley
I might have been lookin' for it yet. I said at the time that I would
get even with them for that, but I couldn't seem to find no way to do
it, kase I don't never have no dealin's with 'em; but I've got an idee
now. I wisht I could think up some way to get them two out in the woods
by theirselves. I'll have to have somebody to help me if I try that,
Susie."

As that was very evident to Mrs. Goble she made no reply, but went on
with her preparations for supper, while Bud smoked and meditated. When
the chickens, potatoes, and hoe-cake were declared to be ready, he did
not change his position, but grabbed what he wanted from the table, and
devoured it while sitting by the fire and trying to conjure up some plan
for making himself square with those fun-loving academy boys. He
inferred that they had been preaching Union doctrines at the school, but
Bud did not care a straw for that. He wanted to punish them for making
him search for that underground railroad. When the dishes were cleared
of everything eatable that had been placed upon them, and the table
moved back to its place, Bud stretched his heavy frame on the ground in
front of the fire and went to sleep, using his hat and boots for a
pillow.

At an early hour the next morning another serious inroad was made upon
the slender stock of provisions Bud had frightened out of old Uncle
Toby, and then Bud shouldered his long squirrel rifle, which he carried
with him wherever he went, and set out for Barrington, not forgetting to
assure his wife that she might confidently expect him to bring that new
dress when he returned at night. While he is on the way let us go back
to the academy and see what is taking place there.

The sentries who were on duty at daylight took note of the fact that
more than half the boys in school arose without waiting for _reveille._
Even a stranger would have known that there was something afoot. The
students gathered in little groups in the corridors and held mysterious
whisperings with one another, or sauntered around with the