."

That was what Captain Beardsley wished; but the trouble was he did not
know where the money was concealed, or just how to go to work to get
hold of it. He had a partly formed plan in his head, but he did not
think that it would be quite safe to let Tom into the secret of it. At
any rate, he would tell all his news first, and think about that
afterward.

"That boy Marcy is a plum dunce to act the way he is doing now," said
the captain, after a little pause. "If he would go into our navy, and
this war should happen to last a year or so longer, he would make a big
officer of himself."

"It won't last six months longer," said Allison confidently. "The
Yankees can't stand more than one Bull Run drubbing. But tell me
honestly, captain: Did Gray really show pluck on the night he got that
broken arm?"

"He did for a fact," replied Beardsley. "He stood up to the rack like a
man, and took the schooner through the inlet with that arm hanging by
his side as limp as a dish-rag. I'm free to say it, though I ain't no
friend of his'n."

"I am sorry you said it in the letters you wrote home to Shelby and
Dillon. I wish that splinter, or whatever it was, had hit his head
instead of his arm, for he carries himself altogether too stiff-legged
on the strength of it. If he had whipped the whole Yankee fleet he could
not throw on more airs. But why do you say he could win promotion by
enlisting in our navy? Do you think he would go among the Federals if he
wasn't afraid?"

"That's where he would go if it wasn't for his mother. It's where his
brother Jack is at this minute."

"Captain," said Tom impressively, "you and I ought to be the very best
of friends, for we think alike on a good many points. Somebody, I don't
know who it was, gave it out through the settlement that Jack Gray went
to Newbern to ship on a Confederate iron-clad; but I didn't believe it,
and I don't think so now. If he and Marcy wanted to go to Newbern they
would have gone by rail, wouldn't they? Instead of that they went in
Marcy's schooner."

"I don't care what anybody has give out or what anybody thinks," said
Beardsley doggedly. "I know what I know, and believe what I have seen
with my own two eyes, don't I? While I was standing into Crooked Inlet
on my way--say! I don't know as I had best tell you what I seen with my
own two eyes."

"Why not?" demanded Allison, who was sure he was about to hear some
exciting news. "You have already told me more than yo