"Mebbe I know, an' mebbe I don't," said the woman, with a contortion of her wrinkled face that was intended for a wink and a smile. "I aint one of them folks who tells all they know. I am a master-hand to keep things to myself when they are told to me for a secret."

"Everybody knows that, and it is the reason why everybody is so willing to trust you," said Tom; and seeing that he had not given the old woman quite enough to loosen her tongue, he turned to Mark and added: "I was sure we would forget it, we are so careless. We came away from your house without ever once thinking of that side of bacon we were going to bring to Mrs. Brown."

"I knew we had forgotten something," said Mark regretfully, "and sure's you live that's it. But it will keep till we come again, won't it, mother? Who did you say wrote that letter?"

"You're very good boys to be always thinkin' of a poor crippled body like me, who can't get about to hear a bit of news on account of the pesky rheumatiz that bothers me night an' day," whined the old woman. "Now when I was a bright, lively young gal – "

"Did I understand you to say that Jack Gray had something to do with the abduction of his mother's overseer?" interrupted Mark, who knew it would never do to let the old woman get started on the story of her girlhood. "You astonish me; you do for a fact!"

"I disremember that I have spoke Jack Gray's name at all sense you two have been here," said Mrs. Brown cautiously.

"But you did, though. Didn't she, Tom?"

"I thought so, certainly; and I told myself at the time, that I did not see how Jack could have had any hand in Hanson's taking off, for I have heard that he was not at home when the thing was done."

"No more he wasn't to hum. He was on his way to jine the Yankee navy, dog-gone him an' them," snapped the woman, whose tongue was fairly loosened now. "But he left them behine who works as well fur him when he aint to hum as when he is."

"We know that very well," said Tom, who was surprised to hear it, "but we don't know for certain who they are. Mark, don't you see that Mrs. Brown is looking for her pipe?"

Mark hadn't noticed it, but all the same he hunted around on the mantel until he found the well-blackened corn-cob, but he could not bring himself to light it. He filled the bowl with some natural leaf he saw in a box and handed it to the woman, who set it going with the aid of a live coal which she took from the hearth in her bony fingers.

"You two aint furgot the stranger who popped up in Nashville all on a sudden like, about the time that Jack Gray came hum from Newbern, have you?" continued the old woman, after she had assured herself by a few long, audible puffs that her pipe was well lighted. "Lemme see if I have disremembered his name. No; sounds to me like it was Aleck Webster."

"Don't know him," said Tom, in a disappointed tone.

"I don't know him either," chimed in Mark, "but I have seen him. You know old man Webster, Tom, who lives about six miles down the main road. Well, Aleck is his son."

"Now I do think, in my soul," exclaimed Allison, "things have come to a pretty pass when Crackers like those Websters can throw a settlement like this into a panic, and order prominent and wealthy planters like Captain Beardsley to quit business and come home on penalty of being burned out in case of disobedience."

"You're mighty right," said Mrs. Brown, who was pleased to hear the captain called a prominent and wealthy planter. "Sich trash aint no call to live on this broad 'arth. They're wuss than the niggers, an' a heap lower down."

"But have you any evidence against the Websters?" inquired Mark.

"I've got a plenty. In the fust place they don't say nothing; an' folks as don't say nothing these times ain't fitten to live. Now is the day when every man oughter come out an' show their colors," said the woman, quoting from Beardsley.

"That means Marcy Gray," said Tom. "I wish I could see a gang of armed men take him out of the house and carry him off."

"He mustn't be teched," said the woman very decidedly.

"Who mustn't – Marcy?" exclaimed Tom and Mark in a breath. "Who said so?

What's the reason he mustn't be touched? He's a traitor."

"I don't know whether he is or not; but he mustn't be pestered.

Leastwise by folks living around here in the settlement."

Tom looked at Mark, and Mark looked about for a chair and sat down. Then they both looked at the old woman. This was something mysterious, and they wanted to have it explained.

"I aint got no more to say on that there p'int," said Mrs. Brown, her tone and manner showing that the question did not admit of argument. "He'll be teched fast enough when the time comes, Marcy Gray will, an' don't you furget to remember what I'm tellin' you. But them as goes for Marcy will be folks that can't be pestered by the men who toted Hanson off to the swamp."

"Ah! Now I see daylight," said Tom, with something that sounded like a sigh of relief. "I thought you meant that Marcy was to be left alone altogether for the reason that he was believed to be a good Confederate. And when these friends of ours, whoever they may be, go for him, I suppose they'll not neglect to look for the money that Mrs. Gray is known to have in her house?"

"I aint heared that anybody knows for sartin that the money is there," said Mrs. Brown. "Leastwise, they don't know it yit. There won't be nothing much done till that there is settled fur a fact."

"Then Marcy will never be molested," declared Tom, throwing a chip spitefully into the fire. "He can go out to the blockading fleet as often as he pleases and ship a dozen brothers in the Yankee navy if he wants to, and nothing will be done to him. If Jack Gray left men behind to work for him while he is at sea, Marcy must know who they are and where to find them, and he can set them on to Mark's father or mine whenever he feels like it. I'll touch him the first good chance I get, and don't you forget to remember that. He is a traitor, and I wouldn't let him alone if all the Captain Beardsleys in the country should say so. And how is any one to find out for certain that his mother has money concealed in her house? She isn't going to publish it to the world, is she?"

The longer Allison talked the more his anger rose, and when he got through he was stalking about the narrow limits of the cabin, shaking his fists over his head in the most frantic manner. The old woman waited patiently for him to sit down again, and then she took her pipe from her mouth long enough to say:

"Kelsey is out of a job jest now."

"That's no news. He's always that way. He won't work when he gets the chance. He would rather beg his living or steal it."

"I know that he's mighty shiftless an' triflin', but he's a tol'able overseer, Kelsey is, when he onct makes up his mine to do something," said the woman. "Now that Hanson has went off the Grays aint got nobody to boss the hands."

"The idea!" cried Tom, who began to "see daylight" once more. "Does Captain Beardsley labor under the delusion that Marcy Gray will hire that man Kelsey, who is next door to a fool, and allow him – "

"Yes, Kelsey is tol'able triflin', an' that there is a fact," interrupted the woman. "But he aint nobody's fule. He's as sly an ole fox as you can meet in a day's travel."

"Marcy Gray will not have him on the place, I tell you," said Tom. "And even if he should be dunce enough to hire him, how could Kelsey find out whether or not there was any money in the house? If the captain has anything against Kelsey, and wants him to disappear some dark night as Hanson did, he is taking the right course to bring it about. That's what will happen to Kelsey if he goes to work on that plantation, and I want you both to remember my words."

"And let me tell you another thing," added Mark. "No one man is going to find the hiding-place of that money if there is any about the house. When the building is down and the foundations are torn up, then it will be found, and not before."

"That there is a fact," observed the woman.

"Where do you think it is concealed, any way?" inquired Tom. "I had an idea that it might be buried in the garden."

"I am willing to bet my horse against your jack-knife that it isn't," replied Mark. "It is so close to the house that the family can keep an eye on all the approaches to it, and it is where fire can't touch it."

"Then it must be buried in the cellar," exclaimed Tom. "I declare! I believe you have hit the exact spot. I should like to be left alone in that place for about an hour with a shovel to work with. I would be rich when I came out."

"You jest keep away from that there suller," said the old woman sternly.

"Don't go nigh the house, nary one of you."

The two boys elevated their eye-brows and looked at each other, and it was as much as half a min ate before Mark Goodwin continued:

"You would be fooled if you looked anywhere but in the walls for it. So a shovel would be of no use to you. I have been in that cellar when Marcy and I were on better terms than we are now, and I know that the floor is laid in cement. It would be a job, I tell you, for a woman to dig it up and put it down again, and she couldn't do it so that the spot would not show itself to the first person who might happen to go in there."

"A woman!" exclaimed Allison.

"Yes, for a woman did the work," answered Mark, who could not have spoken with more confidence if he had been in Mrs. Gray's company on the night the thirty thousand dollars were concealed. "You know Marcy was not at home when his mother made those trips about the country."

"What of that? Didn't she take some of her old servants into her confidence?"

"No, sir. When people are trying to carry water on both shoulders as Mrs. Gray is, they don't let one hand know what the other does."

"And I believe," said Allison, getting upon his feet again and walking about the cabin, "that if somebody should go for Mrs. Gray's coachman in the right way, he would find out all about it. But I say, Mark, it's time for us to be riding along. What shall we bring you when we come again, mother? Snuff and smoking tobacco are always acceptable, I suppose?"

"And don't forget to say that you haven't seen either one of us for more than a week," chimed in Mark. "Doings of some sort are liable to happen in the settlement at any hour of the day or night, and we don't want our names mixed up with them. We shall attend strictly to our own business, and hope that those ruffians who carried Hanson away will do the same."

"I am mighty glad to hear you say that, and I don't want you to disremember what I have tole you," answered the old woman, with some earnestness. "You aint to go a-pesterin' of Marcy Gray an' his maw, kase there is folks about here who won't by no means take it kind of you if you do."

The boys promised that they would bear her warning in mind, but Tom Allison told himself that he thought he should do as he pleased about heeding it. He was not obliged to consult anybody's wishes, in dealing with such a traitor as Marcy Gray had shown himself to be. He turned his back to the fire while Mark was putting on his overcoat, and just then a gentle snore reminded him that there was one person in the cabin whom he had forgotten. It was the negro girl who, having cleared away the late breakfast dishes and put the little furniture there was in the room to rights, had drawn a chair to the table and fallen fast asleep with her head resting on her folded arms. Tom took one look at her, and then he and Mark went out. Neither of them said a word, until they had mounted their horses and ridden into the road, and then Mark inquired:

"What do you know now more than you did when you came here? All I have learned is that Beardsley is afraid of Marcy Gray, and don't want anything to happen to him, if he can help it, for fear that the blame would be laid at his door. I tell you, Tom Allison, as long as those men who carried Hanson away are at large, we have got to look out what we say and do. It's an awful state of affairs, but that is the way it looks to me."

That was the way it looked to Tom also; and as he could not say anything encouraging, he held his peace, and rode on with his eyes fastened upon the horn of his saddle.