"Don't look so pale, Janet. You can tell Hammond, you know, and he'll find a way to circumvent them. And it was to tell you all this that I brought you out here this afternoon, only my unlucky tongue would talk of what I see it's too soon to talk of yet. But here's Louisa, right ahead. Make haste and get your traps, while I settle my business, and we'll be back, perhaps, in time for you to manage some way to see Hammond to-night. Nobody knows you went with me, and you'll never be suspected." Not Tom Salyers's most rapid and vigorous rowing could make our little skiff keep pace with my impatience; but, thanks to his efforts, the sun was still high when he landed me in the little cove behind our house, where I could run up through the woods to our back-door, while he pulled boldly up to the store-landing and called some of the men to help him carry his purchases up the bank. I did not stop for a word with my step-mother, but, passing rapidly through the house, threw my parcels on the bed in the sitting-room, and, running down the walk to the maple-tree under which my dug-out was always tied, jumped into it and sculled out into the river. The coal-boat had just been launched, and George Hammond was standing on the bank superintending the calking of the seams which the water made visible. I pushed up to the bank, and called to him as I neared,-- "Can you not come, Mr. Hammond, a little way up-stream with me? I have found those young tulip-trees that you want for your garden; they are just round the bend above Nat's Creek. Jim Foushee will see to that work, and I have just time to show them to you before supper." I was a favorite with Jim Foushee. He laughed a joking welcome to me, as he said,-- "I'll see to this, Sir, if you want to go with Janet Rainsford. She's the gal that knows the woods. A splendid Sandy wife you'll make some young fellow, Janet, if you don't get too book-learned." In five minutes we were off and had rounded the point out of sight and hearing. In a few hurried words I told my story, but at first Mr. Hammond would not believe it. "Those men that I've done so much for and worked so hard for this winter!" At last, convinced, his face set with the determined look that I had seen on it once or twice before. "I'll not raise the wages of a single man, and, what's more, I'd turn them all off the place, if only I could find others. But those boats at Catlettsburg, they are the most important. The Company would send me up men from Cincinnati, if only I could get word to them; but these rascals will stop any letter I send. Those Sandians are capable of it,--or rather they are capable of putting the Irishmen up to doing their dirty work for them." "A letter would be safe, if it once reached Catlettsburg?" I asked. "Certainly. But how to get it there?" "I can take it. Nobody will suspect me. Give me the letter to-night, and I will go to-morrow." "You, Janet? you are crazy!"