with any force that might be sent against
them. They were well armed and resolute, and Aleck said they would be in
just the right humor to deal with Hanson's case when it was brought to
their notice at their next meeting.

"My mother rather took me to task because I helped that smuggler into
port, but if you can give me the assurance that these Union men will
stand between her and that cowardly overseer she's got on the place, I
shall be glad I became a smuggler for the time being," said Jack.

"I can give you that assurance, Mr. Gray," said Aleck positively.
"That's just what the company, or society, or whatever you have a mind
to call it, was got together for. I know, because I was present at their
last meeting, and the whole thing was explained to me before I took the
oath to stand by it. Why can't you come down and join us?"

"We're not on board ship now, and my name is Jack. There's no Mister
about it," was the reply. "I am in full sympathy with you and with the
object for which you have been brought together, and if I was going to
stay at home I should surely ask you to hand in my name. But my mother
will be defenseless when I go into the navy and Marcy leaves to join
that blockade-runner, and if Shelby and Beardsley and Hanson should find
out that I knew there was an organization like yours in existence, they
would burn up everything we've got. We can't discharge Hanson without
bringing ourselves into serious trouble; and if you fellows could think
up some way to drive him off the place, and bring old Beardsley home so
that my brother wouldn't have to go blockade running any more, you would
make us all your everlasting debtors."

"If you wanted to write to this Captain Beardsley you would address him
at Newbern, wouldn't you? All right. We meet somewhere in the woods next
Wednesday night, and then we will talk it over and see what can be done
for you."

Jack Gray always was light-hearted and jolly, no matter whether things
worked to suit him or not; but Marcy and his mother thought they had
never seen him quite so much at peace with himself and all the world as
he appeared to be after this interview with Aleck Webster. If those
Union men were in earnest and did what his shipmate thought they
certainly would do, there might be a fight right there on the
plantation; and that was the reason Jack did not take his mother into
his confidence. To quote from Marcy, she had enough to trouble her
already. If the atte