"Before the light of to-morrow morning breaks upon Riverlawn, we must move all those boxes to the plantation," replied Mr. Lyon; and he proceeded to discuss the means by which this purpose could be accomplished. "We have teams enough to haul the whole of them over here at one load," said Deck, boiling over with enthusiasm. "Keep cool, my son, for we must be very prudent in our movements. Do you know what became of the flatboat with which the conspirators moved the cases up to the cavern?" "Artie thought of that; and we found the gundalow in a little inlet at the mouth of a brook, covered up with bushes." "Then we may use that," replied the planter. "But I am in doubt about one thing which may bother us." "What's that, father?" asked Deck, who could not think of any impediment to the carrying out of the plan announced by his father. "I don't know that we can depend upon every person about the plantation. A single one opposed to our scheme could ruin it. He might go to the village and tell Titus, or some of his fellow-conspirators, what we were about, and interfere with us before we got back." "No one here would do such a thing," protested Deck. "All the servants believe in you." "I was thinking of Levi Bedford." "Levi!" exclaimed both of the loyal boys together. "I have never spoken a word to him about politics, or he to me. Absolutely all I know about him is that he is a Tennesseean. But we must settle this point on the instant; you may go and find him, Dexter, and ask him to come into the library." Deck left the room. He found the overseer in the sitting-room with the family, and he returned with him a minute later. CHAPTER XII THE NIGHT EXPEDITION IN THE MAGNOLIA Levi Bedford walked into the library not a little excited with curiosity; for Titus Lyon had spent the whole afternoon on the bridge with the planter, who had been closeted with the two boys for some time. It was evident to him that something unusual had occurred. Noah was seated in a great arm-chair which usually faced his desk, but he had turned it around. The overseer walked up to this chair, and planted himself in front of it with a respectful look of inquiry on his round face. "I am in doubt, Levi, and I have sent for you," Mr. Lyon began. "As you are aware, I have never talked politics with you, and have not known to which party you belong." "I don't belong to any party," replied Levi with a very broad smile on his face. "My party is the plantation and the family. I look out for them, and I don't bother my head much about anything else." "I suppose you have relatives in Tennessee?" suggested the planter. "Second or third cousins very likely; but I don't know anything about them, and I don't lie awake nights thinking of them. My father died before I was twenty-one; I had no sisters, and my only brother went to California twenty years ago, and I haven't heard from him in ten years."