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.

Bob’s room being located on the first floor, in one of the wings of the house, it was a matter of no difficulty for him and his companion to leave it without arousing any of the family.  All they had to do was to open one of the windows, drop to the ground, pull on their boots and be off; and this they did in about the same time that it takes to tell it.  They picked up their meal bags as they passed along the fence, and in half an hour more were inside General Gordon’s fence, and moving cautiously along the lane that led toward the negro quarters.  A few steps brought them into the midst of the cabins, which were as dark and silent as though they had been deserted.  Some of them were deserted, while others were occupied by the field hands.  The one in which the quails were confined stood on the outskirts of the quarters, and Bob, who had taken particular pains to mark the building, so that he would know it again, had no difficulty in finding it.  It was the only cabin that was provided with a covered porch; and that same porch, or rather the posts which supported the roof, came very handy to the young prowlers a few minutes later.  They walked around the building two or three times to make sure that there was no one near it, and then Bob cautiously mounted the steps and tried the door.  The patter of little feet and the shrill notes of alarm that sounded from the inside told him that he had aroused the prisoners.

“Just listen to that,” whispered Lester, greatly amazed.  “The cabin must be full of them.”

“We’ll soon know how many there are,” answered Bob.  “I’d give something if I could see Don Gordon’s face when he comes down here in the morning.”

As Bob spoke, he opened one of the meal bags and drew from it the iron strap, which Godfrey Evans had used in prying open the door of the smoke-house two nights before.  Lester struck a match on his coat sleeve, and when it blazed up, so that Bob could see how to work, he placed the strap between the hasp and the door, and exerted all his strength in the effort to draw out the staple with which it was confined.  But that staple was put there to stay.  It was made by the plantation blacksmith under Don’s personal supervision, and as it was long enough to be clinched on the inside of the door, Bob made no progress whatever in his efforts to force an entrance.