ern."

"That would be a nice little sum of money if it had been earned in an
honorable way," observed Jack.

"But it wasn't," said Marcy, "and consequently I don't intend to keep
it. I'm going to give it back to the one to whom it belongs. Oh, you
needn't laugh. I mean it!"

"I know you do, and I hope that you will some day find the man; but I am
afraid you won't. Where is Beardsley now?"

"I left him at Newbern. The presence of the cruisers on the coast
frightened him so that he gave up privateering--he didn't want to run
the risk of being captured with guns aboard of him for fear that he
might be treated as a pirate--and took to running the blockade. We made
one successful trip, taking out cotton and bringing back an assorted
cargo worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars,
and it was while we were trying to make Crooked Inlet on our way home
that we came the nearest to being captured. We ran foul of a howitzer
launch, which turned loose on us with shrapnel and canister, and gave me
this broken arm and Beardsley a black and blue shoulder."

"I wish from the bottom of my heart that she had given him a broken
head," said Jack. "Were you much hurt?"

"I don't mind it in the least," answered Marcy. "It has given me a
chance to visit with mother and you. But I don't quite understand why
you came home as you did. What made you so sly about it? Go more into
particulars, but don't talk too loud."

"Is it a fact that you are afraid to converse in ordinary tones in your
own house?" said Jack, looking inquiringly at his mother.

"Marcy and I have been very cautious, for we don't know whom to trust,"
answered Mrs. Gray. "One of our principal sources of anxiety is the
money we have hidden in the cellar wall."

"Thirty thousand dollars!" whispered Marcy in his brother's ear. "Mother
brought it home herself and spent three nights in fixing a place for
it."

"Holy Moses!" said Jack under his breath. "Do the neighbors know it?"

"They suspect it, and that is what troubles us."

"I don't wonder at it. Why, mother, there are plenty of white trash about
here who would rob you in a minute if they thought they could do it
without bringing harm to themselves. I declare, I am almost afraid to
leave home again."

"Oh, Jack!" said his mother, the tears starting to her eyes; "you surely
will not leave me again."

"Not if you bid me stay, but I didn't think you would do it, knowing, as
I did, that you ar