“I'm thinking,” said Cavarly, “we'll take that boat and go up to Richmond. But you an' Ben Cree there, I was thinkin' you're some dif'ent.” “Why,” said Calhoun, looking surprised, “don't you want us to go with you?” “Oh, yes, yes! Not that at all. Glad to have you. But it might happen you'd have some idea--Course I don' know. But you ain't really bound----” “Why,” continued Calhoun, “if you're thinking of sending Ben to his people, you'd better take him with you as far as you go. Maybe you could see him through to Baltimore.” “Hey! that's so,” said Cavarly cheerfully. “An' wha's your point?” “Mine! Well, you see my position. What would you advise, as a friend?” Cavarly hesitated and spoke stiffly, with embarrassment. “I don' know as I'm up to that. Appears most natural to go to Richmond.” “Just so. And what point would there be in not staying by you. We go to--what you call it--Redwood, to-morrow? Early?” “Six o'clock.” “All right.” I sat up as the three men passed, but they hardly looked at me, and said nothing. Calhoun kept his hat over his face till their footsteps died away, then turned around. “Captain didn't argue that well,” he remarked. “He ought to be dead sure, and he isn't.” “Well,” I said, “he might feel sure of it when we got to Richmond, and then he'd arrest us, wouldn't he?” “Richmond! We're not going to Richmond. We're going to light out of here to-night.” I thought Calhoun was difficult to follow in his plans, and waited for more. “Why, see here, Bennie Ben!” he said indignantly. “Here's the old man going round looking like a suppressed wildcat and thinking I'm not on to him! That's absurd. It don't give me any credit. He ought to be sure we fiddled with his compass, and he ought to know I'm on to him. Must be he's busted with his ship. Why, he's a clever man, Bennie, but look how he's doing! Course, if a fellow is going to do another fellow, he has to make up his mind.” “But where are we going?” “North. Follow the pole star. You lie by that pantry door to-night, Bennie Ben. I figure it out like _x_ plus _y_.” Calhoun settled his hat over his face and seemed to give himself genuinely to sleep. He said nothing more till we heard Mr. Todd shouting, “Hiop! Dinner!” And in the afternoon he fell to wandering about aimlessly. I did not dare follow him, so that I was more than half unhappy with tickling curiosity, and glad when night came, and I had no longer to carry about in daylight a secret that made me nervous. If Calhoun had heard me on the point of telling Cavarly that I hoped to see him again another time, he would not have thought himself so infallible a plotter. Mrs. Todd had learned from the men how I first fell among them--a thin woman and not very talkative. She brought me another blanket, where I lay by the pantry door, and said: