the thing stands. A man who knows as
much about this coast as you do never wanted a pilot, but you did want
to marry Mrs. Gray's plantation; and when she gave you to understand
that she wouldn't have it so----"

"See here, young feller, you're going too fur," cried the captain,
pulling his collar down with one hand and shaking his whip threateningly
at Allison with the other. "You don't know what you're talking about,
and I won't hear another word of it."

"What's the use of getting mad because somebody tells you the truth?"
demanded Tom. "Every one says so, and what every one holds to can't be
so very far wrong. You know you don't need a pilot, and I know it too.
You have nothing against Marcy Gray personally----"

"I ain't, hey?" shouted the angry captain. "He's just the biggest kind
of a traitor that ever----"

"That isn't what I am trying to get at, and you know it," interrupted
Tom. "You want to hurt him and his mother by taking him to sea against
his will and hers. Now if you were in Marcy's place, and knew all these
things, as he most likely does, and you saw a good chance to get even
with the man who was persecuting you, would you let that chance slip? I
reckon not."

"But if it's Marcy who has been a-pestering of me, how can I prove it on
him?" inquired Beardsley, who was as angry as Allison had ever known him
to be.

"Let me see the letter," replied Tom.

"No, I reckon not. What do you want to see it fur?"

"I can tell you whether or not Marcy Gray wrote it, for I know his hand
as well as I know my own."

Beardsley hesitated. Ever since the morning he took the letter in
question from the office in Newbern, he had been burning with anxiety
and impatience to find out whom he had to thank for sending it to him,
and he was now on his way to call upon his friends Shelby and Dillon to
see if they could not put him on the track of the writer. He wanted to
ask them what they thought of the whole miserable business any way, and
did not care to show the letter until he heard what they had to say
about it.

"I know the handwriting of every man and boy in this settlement,"
continued Allison, "and if I can't tell you who wrote it no one can; not
even the postmaster."

This settled the matter, to Allison's satisfaction. The captain opened
his coat and drew out the letter, which was written in a hand that was
plainly disguised, for the same characters were not formed twice alike.
It was not very long, but it w