He ran lightly up the steps to greet her as she appeared at the door, but stopped short when he reached the gallery, for he saw that his mother was as solemn as her surroundings. She tried to call a cheerful smile to her face, but the effort was a sad failure.
"What in the world is the matter here?" demanded Marcy, as soon as he could speak. "Have the hands all run away? Where is everybody? Why is the place so quiet?"
"Oh, Marcy!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, motioning to Julius to take the valise into the house, "such a strange thing has happened since you went away. Hanson has disappeared as completely as though he had never been on the place at all."
"Good enough," cried Marcy, giving his mother a bear-like hug with his one strong arm. "Now we shall be free from his—eh? You don't mean to say you are sorry he has gone, do you?"
"I don't know whether I am or not," was the astounding reply. "If he had left of his own free will I should be glad, I assure you; but the manner of his going frightens me."
"The manner?" repeated Marcy, who was all in the dark.
"Yes. The night after you went away, some of the field hands were awakened by an unusual noise and went to the door of their cabins to see a party of fifteen or twenty masked men making off, with Hanson bound and gagged in the midst of them. They were so badly frightened that—Marcy," exclaimed Mrs. Gray, holding the boy off at arm's length and looking searchingly into his face, "do you know anything about it? Is Jack at the bottom of this strange affair?"
These last words were called forth by the exclamation of surprise and delight that Marcy uttered when the truth of the whole matter flashed suddenly upon him. The absent Jack had told him that the morning was coming when his mother would not hear the field hands called to work because there would be no one to call them, and his prediction had been verified. Aleck Webster was true blue, the Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp could be depended on to hold their rebel neighbors in check, and Marcy Gray could hardly refrain from dancing with delight at the thought of it.
"Come in and I will tell you all I know about it," said he, throwing his arm about his mother's waist and leading her into the hall. "You needn't worry. Every one of the men who came here that night were your friends and mine, and they——"
"But who were they?" asked Mrs. Gray.