The first thing the two boys did after they had eaten their dinner, was to fit up one of the unoccupied negro cabins for the reception of the birds they intended to steal that night. There were a good many holes to be patched in the roof where the shingles had been blown off, and numerous others to be boarded up in the walls where the chinking had fallen out, and the afternoon was half gone before their work was done. They still had time to visit their traps, but all the birds they took out of them could have been counted on the fingers of one hand. Bob looked at them a moment, then thought of the big box full he had seen Don and Bert take home that morning, and grew very angry over his ill luck. He proposed to wring the necks of the captives and have them served up for breakfast the next morning, but Lester would not consent. Every one helped, he said, and these five birds, added to the forty or fifty they were to steal that night, would make a good start toward the fifty dozen they wanted. After the boys had eaten supper, they secured four meal bags, which they hid away in a fence corner, so that they could find them again when they wanted them, and then adjourned to the wagon-shed to lay their plans for the night's campaign. Of course their expedition could not be undertaken until everybody about the General's plantation was abed and asleep. That would not be before ten or twelve o'clock--the negroes kept late hours since they gained their freedom, Bob said--and they dared not go to sleep for fear that they would not awake again before morning. They hardly knew what to do with themselves until bed time came. They spent an hour in talking over their plans, then went into the house and played checkers, and were glad indeed when the hour for retiring arrived. They made a show of going to bed, but they removed nothing but their boots, which they slammed down on the floor with more noise than usual. They heard the clock in the kitchen strike every hour, and when it struck twelve they began to bestir themselves.