m on if he wants to, but he'd best watch out that
I don't get there first. Say, colonel, that there money is in the house
all right, just as we uns thought it was."

"How do you know?" exclaimed his companion. The colonel had not noticed
the frightened glances that Marcy and his mother exchanged when Kelsey's
name was mentioned, and he was surprised to hear Beardsley speak so
positively.

"Say!" answered the captain. "You aint forgot how you sent Kelsey up to
Mrs. Gray's, while I was at sea, to make some inquiries about the money
she was thought to have stowed away, have you? Well, Marcy and his
mother aint forgot it nuther; and when I spoke Kelsey's name, and said
mebbe he would be a good one to take Hanson's place, Marcy jumped like I
had stuck a pin in him."

"Well, what of it?"

"What of it? Marcy knowed in a minute that I wanted to have that man
took on the plantation for to snoop around of nights and find out all
about that money. But I aint a caring. I know the money is there, and
that's all I wanted to find out. The ways I have talked and schemed and
planned to make that there boy say that him and his maw had as much as
they wanted to tide them through the war that's coming, is just amazing,
now that I think of it; but not a word could I get out of him. He was
too smart to be ketched; but all on a sudden he gives out the secret as
easy as falling off a log. The money is there, I tell you."

"And you intend to get it, I suppose?" added the colonel. "Well, now,
look here, Beardsley; don't say a word to me about it."

"All right, Colonel," said Beardsley, who could scarcely have been
happier if he had had the whole of Mrs. Gray's thirty thousand dollars
where he could put his hand upon it at any time he pleased. "I know what
you mean by them words. Of course you are too big a man and too rich to
go into business with me, but I know some who aint. I'll show them Grays
that they aint so great as they think for."

"Have you so soon forgotten what that letter said?" inquired the
colonel. "If anything happens to Marcy's mother or her property some of
us will be sure to suffer for it, unless you are sharp enough to lay the
blame upon some one else."

"Say!" replied Beardsley, in a whisper. "That's what I'm thinking of
doing. Your time's your own, I reckon, aint it? and you don't mind a
little mite of rain, do you? Then come with me and see how I am going to
work it."

So saying the captain urged his horse into