"You hinted a while ago that Colonel Shelby had sent you here to tell me some bad news," said the young pilot, in a much pleasanter tone of voice than he had thus far used in addressing his visitor. "Are you ready now to obey orders and tell me what it is?" "Well, I dunno. I reckon mebbe I'd best ride down an' see the colonel first," replied the man. But his actions said plainly that he _did_ know, and that he had no intention of facing his employer again until he could tell him that his instructions had been carried out. "Of course, you must do as you think best about that; but if it is anything that concerns my mother or myself----" "I should say so," exclaimed Kelsey. "I don't reckon it'll do any harm to tell you--but ain't there anybody to listen? It's very important an' private." "I think you may speak with perfect freedom; but in order to make sure of it----" Marcy finished the sentence by getting up and closing both the doors that opened upon the veranda. "Now we're safe," said he; whereupon Kelsey revealed the whole plot in less than a score of words. "Mebbe you don't know it," said he, in a whisper which was so loud and piercing that it could have been heard by an eavesdropper (if there had been one) at least fifty feet away, "but you are harboring a traitor right here on the place." "Who is it?" "Your mean sneak of an overseer." It was now Marcy's turn to be astonished. He knew that there was not a word of truth in what the man said, and that if the overseer really was a Union man the planters round about would have sent a person of more influence and better social standing than Kelsey to tell him of it; but after all the plot was not as simple as it looked at first glance. "Where's your proof?" was the first question he asked. "Well, Hanson has been talkin' a heap to them he thought to be Union, but it turned out that they wasn't. They was true to the flag of the 'Federacy." "What do Colonel Shelby and the rest want me to do?" inquired Marcy, catching at an idea that just then flashed through his mind. "If they will write me a note stating the facts of the case and asking me to discharge Hanson, I will attend to it before the sun goes down." "Well, you see they don't keer to take a hand in the furse at all, seein' that there's so many Union folks in the settlement," said Kelsey. "They've got nice houses an' nigger quarters, an' they don't want 'em burned up." "But they are willing that I should get into trouble by discharging Hanson, and put myself in the way of having my house and quarters destroyed, are they?" exclaimed the boy, his face growing red with indignation, although, as he afterward told his mother, there wasn't really anything to arouse his indignation. "You may tell those gentlemen that if they want the overseer run off the plantation, they can come here and do it. If the Union men are as vindictive as Colonel Shelby seems to think they are, I don't care to get them down on me."