t listen to anything."

"I am glad you told me this," said Mr. Owens, after thinking a
moment, "and it is just as well that you did not say anything to
David about the mail. No one knows that I am going to put in a bid
for the contract, and I don't want it known; so be careful what you
say. Gordon will never get that mail route for David, for the
authorities will think twice before appointing the son of a thief
to so responsible a situation."

"But are you going to do nothing to Godfrey?"

"I'll keep him in mind, and if it becomes necessary I'll put the
constable after him, and tell him that the more fuss he makes in
capturing him, the better it will suit me."

The first thing the two boys did after they had eaten their dinner,
was to fit up one of the unoccupied negro cabins for the reception of
the birds they intended to steal that night. There were a good many
holes to be patched in the roof where the shingles had been blown
off, and numerous others to be boarded up in the walls where the
chinking had fallen out, and the afternoon was half gone before their
work was done. They still had time to visit their traps, but all the
birds they took out of them could have been counted on the fingers of
one hand. Bob looked at them a moment, then thought of the big box
full he had seen Don and Bert take home that morning, and grew very
angry over his ill luck. He proposed to wring the necks of the
captives and have them served up for breakfast the next morning, but
Lester would not consent. Every one helped, he said, and these five
birds, added to the forty or fifty they were to steal that night,
would make a good start toward the fifty dozen they wanted.

After the boys had eaten supper, they secured four meal bags, which
they hid away in a fence corner, so that they could find them again
when they wanted them, and then adjourned to the wagon-shed to lay
their plans for the night's campaign. Of course their expedition
could not be undertaken until everybody about the General's
plantation was abed and asleep. That would not be before ten or
twelve o'clock--the negroes kept late hours since they gained their
freedom, Bob said--and they dared not go to sleep for fear that they
would not awake again before morning. They hardly knew what to do
with themselves until bed time came. They spent an hour in talking
over their plans, then went into the house and played checkers, and
were glad indeed when the hour for retiring arriv