Marcy good-naturedly complied, and hearing voices coming from the dining-room he went in there, and found Julius listening to a lecture from Mrs. Gray on the sinfulness of stealing. But Julius defended himself with spirit, and declared that for once his habit of picking up any little articles he found lying around loose had been productive of good to every member of the family. "When I put dat pin in my pocket, missus, I know I ain't goin' to steal it," he protested, with so much earnestness and with such an appearance of sincerity that almost anybody except Mrs. Gray would have believed him. "I don't do no stealin'. I jes' want to look at de pin, an' I goin' put it back when I get done lookin' at it. But de oberseer he done took it away from me, an' dat's de way you find out what sort of a man he is. No, missus; I don't steal. I always tell de troof." Marcy Gray did not ride to Nashville with any hope of meeting Aleck Webster that day, and consequently he was most agreeably surprised when he saw him standing on the steps of the post-office. He did not look or act like a man who had been engaged in any underhand business, and neither did Colonel Shelby, who hastened down the steps and came across the road to the hitching-rack to help Marcy off his horse. "So glad to see you safe back," was the way in which he greeted the boy. "Your brother said that if you came down here without him some day we might know he was in the navy; so I suppose that is where he is. He didn't waste much time in going, did he? What's the news from Newbern?" Marcy cut his replies as short as he could without being rude, and went into the office to look at his mother's box, which had been emptied by the coachman half a dozen hours before. He exchanged a very slight nod and a wink with Aleck Webster as he passed him, and the latter, who seemed to know just what he meant by the pantomime, mounted his horse when no one but Marcy was watching him and went down the road toward Mrs. Gray's plantation. There were plenty of loungers in the office, young Allison, of course, being one of the most talkative ones among them, and although they seemed to know where Jack was, they could not imagine what had become of Hanson. "I tell you honestly, Marcy, that if it hadn't been for that Confederate flag in your mother's dining-room, we should have laid his abduction at your door," said Allison. "But the flag proves that you are all right; and, besides, you couldn't have had a hand in it, for you were on your way to Newbern when it happened. It opened our eyes to the fact that there are traitors among us, and that we must be careful who we talk to."