"I ain't sayin' nothing agin that," replied the man hastily.
"But—you're fur Jeff Davis, ain't you?"
Instead of answering in words, Marcy pulled down the corner of his right eye and looked at Kelsey as if to ask him if he saw anything green in it.
"What do ye mean by them movements?" demanded the visitor.
"I mean that I am not going to talk politics with you," was the reply. "This settlement is full of traitors, and I'm going to hold my tongue unless I know who I am talking to. If I do that, I shan't get into trouble by speaking too freely in the hearing of a Yankee spy."
"But look a-here, Mister Marcy," protested Kelsey.
"If you came to pry into our private affairs, you might as well jump on your mule and go home, for you'll not get a word from me. I ought to put the dogs on you, for if all I hear is true you're the worst kind of a traitor." ["And so you are," thought Marcy, closely watching the effect of his words, although he did not seem to be doing so; "you're a traitor to the old flag.">[
The visitor was astonished beyond measure, and it was fully a minute before he could collect his wits sufficiently to frame a reply.
CHAPTER II.
HIDING THE FLAGS.
"I think I have taken the right course," soliloquized the young pilot, who mentally congratulated himself on the ease with which he had "got to windward" of this sneaking spy. "If I fight him with his own weapons I shall probably get more out of him than I could in any other way."