"No; but I would put the authorities on to him tolerable sudden and have him forced into the army. Because why, I am scart of that chap myself. He's hanging around here now, waiting for a good chance to do some more meanness." "You don't say!" exclaimed Tom, growing frightened. "He ought to be got rid of. But who is he? Is there any one about here that you know of who has reason to be down on you? Any one besides the Grays, I mean?" Beardsley dropped his reins, pulled the collar of his coat down from his face with both hands, and looked hard at his companion. "Why, of course the Grays are down on you heavy, and all your friends and mine know it," continued Tom. "You know it, don't you?" "There, now!" exclaimed the captain, rearranging his collar and picking up his reins again. "I never once thought of blaming it on that there Marcy." "I don't blame it on him, and I don't want you to think so for a moment," said Tom, who had not yet arrived at the point of being confidential with Beardsley. "I never hinted that Marcy wrote the letter; but just look at the way the thing stands. A man who knows as much about this coast as you do never wanted a pilot, but you did want to marry Mrs. Gray's plantation; and when she gave you to understand that she wouldn't have it so----" "See here, young feller, you're going too fur," cried the captain, pulling his collar down with one hand and shaking his whip threateningly at Allison with the other. "You don't know what you're talking about, and I won't hear another word of it." "What's the use of getting mad because somebody tells you the truth?" demanded Tom. "Every one says so, and what every one holds to can't be so very far wrong. You know you don't need a pilot, and I know it too. You have nothing against Marcy Gray personally----" "I ain't, hey?" shouted the angry captain. "He's just the biggest kind of a traitor that ever----" "That isn't what I am trying to get at, and you know it," interrupted Tom. "You want to hurt him and his mother by taking him to sea against his will and hers. Now if you were in Marcy's place, and knew all these things, as he most likely does, and you saw a good chance to get even with the man who was persecuting you, would you let that chance slip? I reckon not." "But if it's Marcy who has been a-pestering of me, how can I prove it on him?" inquired Beardsley, who was as angry as Allison had ever known him to be. "Let me see the letter," replied Tom. "No, I reckon not. What do you want to see it fur?" "I can tell you whether or not Marcy Gray wrote it, for I know his hand as well as I know my own."