s to fight our battles alone. But he had an idea
that the presence of the Yankees on the coast would serve as a
protection to us; and there's where he was wrong. If we don't do
something at once, they will follow us into the swamp and kill or
capture the last one of us. That fight in Hampton Roads put life and
energy into them."

"I don't see why it should. They got the worst of it."

"Are you sure?" exclaimed Mr. Webster. "I heard that we got the worst of
it; that some of our best ships were sunk or burned."

"Will it be quite safe for us to stop here long enough to have a snack?"
said Marcy. "Then, Julius, you may hand out that brown basket; the one
with the napkin spread over the top. I'm hungry, and I suppose you are,
Mr. Webster, for you have walked from your home since Hawkins saw you
this afternoon. By the way, where is Hawkins now?"

"He will hang around the settlement as long as he can, and take to the
woods only when he sees that preparations are being made to compel him
to go back to the army. Didn't you see him with the Home Guards
to-night?"

Marcy replied that he did not see anybody, for he ran before the Home
Guards came into the house. If Hawkins was with them, as he had promised
to be, Marcy was satisfied that no indignity had been offered to his
mother.

By this time Julius had made the boat fast to a tree on the bank and
come ashore with the lunch; and while Marcy and his new friend were
eating the cold bread and meat he passed over to them, the former gave a
true history of that battle in Hampton Roads as he learned it from the
papers Captain Barrows left with him. Then he gave a short account of
his experience and dealings with Captain Beardsley, so that the man
might know just how much reason he had to stand in fear of him, and
finally he inquired how many men there were in Mr. Webster's party, and
where and how they lived. He learned that there was an even score of
them now, seven of their number (one of whom was Ben Hawkins) being
paroled prisoners, who declared that they would fight rather than go
back to the army. It had been the habit of the original members of the
band to go into the woods whenever they desired to talk about things
that they didn't want their rebel neighbors to know; but ever since they
heard of the Home Guards, whose avowed object it was to send all the
Union men they could find to Williamston Jail, they had become refugees
in earnest, some of them having taken up the