w who I am talking to. If I do that, I shan't get into
trouble by speaking too freely in the hearing of a Yankee spy."

"But look a-here, Mister Marcy," protested Kelsey.

"If you came to pry into our private affairs, you might as well jump on
your mule and go home, for you'll not get a word from me. I ought to put
the dogs on you, for if all I hear is true you're the worst kind of a
traitor." ["And so you are," thought Marcy, closely watching the effect
of his words, although he did not seem to be doing so; "you're a traitor
to the old flag."]

The visitor was astonished beyond measure, and it was fully a minute
before he could collect his wits sufficiently to frame a reply.

CHAPTER II.

HIDING THE FLAGS.

"I think I have taken the right course," soliloquized the young pilot,
who mentally congratulated himself on the ease with which he had "got to
windward" of this sneaking spy. "If I fight him with his own weapons I
shall probably get more out of him than I could in any other way."

"You heared that I was a traitor?" exclaimed Kelsey, as soon as he could
speak. "Mister Marcy, the man who told you that told you a plumb lie,
kase I ain't. I whooped her up fur ole Car'liny when she went out, I
done the same when our gov'ner grabbed the forts along the coast, an' I
yelled fit to split when our folks licked 'em at Charleston. Any man in
the settlement or in Nashville will tell ye that them words of mine is
nothing but the gospel truth."

Marcy knew well enough that his visitor's words were true, but he shook
his head in a doubting way, as he replied:

"That may all be; but _I_ didn't hear you whoop and yell, and you must
not expect me to take your word for it. You must bring some proof before
I will talk to you."

"Why, how in sense could ye hear me whoop an' yell, seein' that you was
away to school in the first place, an' off on the ocean with Beardsley
in the next?" exclaimed Kelsey. "Ask Dillon, an' Colonel Shelby, an' the
postmaster, an' see if they don't say it's the truth."

"You have mentioned the names of some of our most respected citizens,"
said Marcy slowly, as if he were still reluctant to be convinced of the
man's sincerity. "And if they, or any of them, sent you up here to talk
to my mother--why, then, I shall have to listen to you; but mind you, if
you are trying to play a game on me----"

"Mister Marcy," said Kelsey solemnly, "I ai