, and I heard some of them say that a war is surely
coming, and in the end the Southern States will wish they had never
seceded."

"Well, them teachers of yourn was the biggest fules I ever heard tell
of," exclaimed Beardsley, settling back in his chair and slamming a
paper-weight down upon the table. "Why, don't I tell you that we've got
'em licked already? More'n that, I don't mean to fall into the hands of
them cruisers outside. I tell you that you'll miss it if you don't take
out a venture. And as for your mother needing them seventeen hundred
dollars to buy grub and the like, you can't pull the wool over my eyes
in no such way as that. She's got money by the bushel, and I know it to
be a fact."

"Then you know more than I do," replied Marcy, his eyes never dropping
for an instant under the searching gaze the captain fixed upon him.
"Now, I would like to ask you one question: You have money enough of
your own to load this vessel, have you not?"

"Why, of course I--that's neither here nor there," replied Beardsley,
who was not sharp enough to keep out of the trap that Marcy had placed
for him. "What of it?"

"I know it to be a fact that you could load the schooner with cotton
purchased with your own money if you felt like it," answered the young
pilot, "but you don't mean to do it. You would rather carry cotton
belonging to somebody else, and that is all the proof I want that you
are afraid of the Yankees. If you want to do the fair thing by me, why
do you advise me to put my money into a venture, when you are afraid to
put in a dollar for yourself?"

"Why, man alive," Beardsley almost shouted, "don't I risk my schooner?
Every nigger I've got was paid for with money she made for me by
carrying cigars and such like between Havana and Baltimore."

"That's what I thought," said Marcy, to himself. "And you didn't pay a
cent of duty on those cigars, either."

"I do my share by risking my schooner," continued the captain. "But I
want somebody to make something besides myself, and if you don't want to
risk your money, I reckon I'll give the mates a chance. That's all."

"What in the name of sense did I go and speak to him about them cigars
for?" he added, mentally, as the pilot ascended the ladder that led to
the deck. "I think myself that there's a war coming, and if we get
licked I must either make a fast friend of that boy or get rid of him;
for if he tells on me I'll get into trouble sure."

It looked now as