pride," added Mark. "I'd give a dollar if I could have
looked into his face about the time he gave up that boss shot-gun of
his, that I have heard him brag about until it made me sick."

"Why didn't they take Marcy himself as well as the guns?" continued Tom.
"He couldn't deny that he has given aid and comfort to the Confederates
by running the blockade and capturing vessels for them."

"And if he did deny it, how did he explain the presence of that
Confederate flag in his house?" demanded Mark.

"Hold on till I tell you how it was," said Beardsley, as soon as the
boys gave him a chance to speak. "Them Yankees went up to Grays', like I
told you, and I was here when they come back; but they didn't have the
first thing."

"Whoop! Then they didn't search the house," yelled Mark. "Marcy and Jack
have more shot-guns and sporting rifles than any two other boys in the
country."

"Leastwise they didn't find nothing that was contraband of war," said
the captain. "Them is the very words they spoke to me."

Tom and Mark looked at each other in speechless amazement.

CHAPTER XV.

MARCY SEES SOMEBODY.

If you would like to know why Captain Burrows (that was the name of the
officer who commanded the Union troopers) did not find in Mrs. Gray's
house any articles that were contraband of war, we will ride with him
and his company long enough to find out.

During the days of which we write scouting was a necessary duty, but it
sometimes happened that it was one of the most disagreeable,
particularly when it fell to the lot of a gentleman like Captain
Burrows, and his orders compelled him to enter private houses whose only
inmates were supposed to be women and children; but now and then these
scouts found able-bodied men in uniform concealed in dwellings that were
thought to be occupied wholly by non-combatants. During the Yazoo Pass
expedition the gunboat to which we belonged was ordered to search all
the houses along the banks of the Coldwater and Tallahatchie rivers,
although we knew that that important duty had already been performed by
the soldiers. In one house, whose female occupants vociferously affirmed
that all the men who belonged there were in Vicksburg and had not been
near home for six months, a belt containing a sword and revolver was
found under a bed. That was as good evidence as we wanted that the man
who owned the belt was not far away, and after a short search he was
discovered in the cellar. No doubt