“Yes, that’s easy to say, but how’re we going to do it?” Jerry broke in with. “The old fellow seems to like it here; yes, and I rather guess he’s taken something of a fancy to the bunch of us, too. He sticks worse than a mustard plaster on your back. Talk of Sinbad, and the Old Man of the Sea; Luther could give ’em points on how to stay right there.” “Leave it to Frank,” interrupted Will. “He’s got a plan, I’m sure; haven’t you?” “Well, here it is in a nutshell,” remarked Frank, smiling at the confidence the other chum seemed to have in his ability to meet a situation; “we’ll get to Memphis to-morrow, you see. Thinking that we mean to put him ashore only at Vicksburg, below, Luther will have no chance to play sick; so we can work the little racket.” “Are we in it, too, Frank?” asked Bluff. “Yes, you and Jerry are to go ashore after we tie up, to get some things, besides the mail. An hour later you’ll have come back, with your errands done; but remember you’re not to come aboard, or show yourselves. Then I’ll recollect something I wanted you to do very much. Will, at the time, can be deep in some business connected with his photography, and I can’t send him to hunt you up at the store; so I’ll ask old Luther to please take the bottle to get filled.” “That’s dead easy,” muttered Bluff; “he’ll fall into the trap; and after he’s out of sight Jerry ‘nd I’ll slip aboard, when we part company with our passenger. Say, I’ll be a little sorry, someway, too; for after all, he’s not such a bad sort.” “But, Frank, how will he know what our meaning is?” Will inquired. “I have all that planned out,” Frank went on. “I’ll give him a note to hand to Jerry here. When he can’t find him, and discovers that we’ve left him in the lurch, of course he’ll think to open it. It will be a few lines written to him, telling that we have found out who he is; and that as Uncle Felix positively ordered us not to carry Marcus Stackpole as a passenger, we have had to send him adrift. I’ll enclose a ten-dollar bill in the letter. That would take him to New Orleans if he’s really what he claims. That’s to ease my conscience in the matter, boys.” “And a good scheme, too!” remarked Bluff. “It takes Frank to think ’em up; I always said so,” Will added. They did not dare talk along that line any further, for fear the object of their conversation would suddenly come out of the cabin, and seeing them looking so mysterious, scent enough of the truth to keep on his guard the following day, which would interfere very much with Frank’s plan. During the balance of that afternoon and the evening that followed, all the boys tried hard to appear natural whenever Luther was around. He may have thought they looked a little queer at times; but at least they gave him no reason to believe that his secret was known. It was about ten the next morning that the hawser was made fast to a wharf at the river front of Memphis; which lies on a sort of bluff, high above the Mississippi.