When Tom Randolph and the man Lambert brought their interview to a close and rode away in different directions, as we have recorded, the latter turned into the first lane he came to, and finally disappeared in the woods. For three or four miles or more he rode along the fence that separated a wide corn-field from the timber, passed in the rear of Mr. Gray’s extensive home plantation, and at last came out into the road again opposite the house in which Ned Griffin and his mother now lived. Having made sure that there were none of Major Morgan’s men in sight (he feared them and the Baton Rouge people more than he did the boys in blue) Lambert crossed the road and threw down the bars that gave entrance into the door-yard. The noise aroused Ned’s hounds, whose sonorous yelping quickly brought their master to the porch.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Ned, when he saw who his visitor was. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I have been looking for you all day. Have you done anything for your country since I seen you last?”

Ned’s manner would have made Tom Randolph open his eyes, and might, perhaps, have aroused his suspicions, there was so much unbecoming familiarity in it. More than that, his words seemed to imply that there was some sort of an understanding between him and the ex-Home Guard. The latter seated himself on the end of the porch, pulled his cob pipe from his pocket and tapped his thumb-nail with the inverted bowl to show that it was empty, whereupon Ned went into the house and presently came out again with a plug of navy tobacco in his hand. The sight of it made Lambert’s eyes glisten.

“I aint seen the like very often since the war come onto us,” said he, as he proceeded to cut off enough of the weed to fill his pipe; “an’ this here nigger-heel that we uns have to put up with nowadays aint fitten for a white man to use. Do you know, I think Rodney Gray is jest one of the smartest fellers there is a-goin’?”

“I’ve always thought and said so,” replied Ned. “But what has he done lately that is so very bright?”

“Hirin’ me to watch that cotton of his’n so that I could tell him if I see anybody castin’ ugly eyes at it,” said Lambert, settling back at his ease on the gallery so that he could enjoy his smoke to the best advantage. “When you told me that Rodney would take it as a friendly act on my part if I would do that much for him, I didn’t think there was the least bit of use in it, but now I know there is. I run up agin somebody a while ago, an’ who do you think it was?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, but I hope it wasn’t anyone who had designs on that cotton.”

“It was that Tom Randolph,” answered Lambert.

“You must be dreaming!” exclaimed Ned.

“Them’s the very same words I axed myself when I first see Tom comin’ t’wards me on his mu-el, kase I couldn’t b’lieve it was him till I listened to him talk; then I knowed it was Tom, for almost the first thing he said was meanness. He’s made it up with some of the Home Guards at Camp Pinckney.”

“Gracious!” cried Ned, becoming frightened. “They’re the worst lot of ruffians in the world. They shoot their prisoners.”

“So I’ve heerd tell,” said Lambert indifferently. “Well, them’s the fine chaps that Tom has made it up with to burn old man Gray’s cotton, an’ he wanted to know if I would sorter guide them to the place where it was, an’ I told him I wouldn’t, kase I aint going to take no chances on bein’ tooken to that camp. I’m scared of them Pearl River chaps.”

“You’d better be, for they would just as soon shoot you as anybody else, simply to keep their hands in. Now, how are we going to keep them from finding that cotton?”

“That’s the very thing that’s been a-pesterin’ of me ever since Tom spoke to me about it,” answered Lambert.

“If you don’t act as their guide they can easily find somebody else who will do it rather than be shot,” said Ned in an anxious tone. “I don’t believe Rodney has enjoyed a night’s sound sleep since he had his first talk with the Federal provost marshal at Baton Rouge. But he is bound to save his father’s property if he can, and you must do all in your power to help him.”

“Do you remember what you said on the night you rid up to my door an’ warned me that the citizens allowed to hang me for what I done down the river?” replied Lambert. “You said that old man Gray was tryin’ to talk ’em out of it by tellin’ ’em that if they done it they would be sorry in the mornin’, didn’t you? Well, I don’t forget a man who does me a good turn any more’n I forget one who does me a mean one.” And when he said this he scowled fiercely, for he was thinking of Tom Randolph.

“Well, have you any plan in your head?” continued Ned.

“Nary plan. I jest rid down to get some good tobacker an’ to tell you to warn Rodney to look out for breakers. What’s the reason you don’t want me to go nigh his house for a few days?”

“That’s my business—and Rodney’s,” said Ned shortly.

“’Taint mine,” laughed Lambert, “but if you asked me to make a rough guess——”

“But I don’t ask you to make a rough guess,” interrupted Ned. “Or a smooth one either. Did Tom Randolph tell you how he got out of Camp Pinckney?”

“——a rough guess, I should say that Rodney’s got one of two things in hidin’ down there; either a deserter from our side, or a Yankee pris’ner that he is waitin’ for a chance to send to Baton Rouge. But ’taint none of my business, an’ I won’t tell,” said Lambert with good-natured persistence. And then he stopped, for when he looked up into Ned’s face he saw that it had suddenly grown very pale. “I aint said a word about it to nobody, an’ aint goin’ to; but you tell Rodney that when he wants friends, as most likely he will, they’ll be around. Me an’ Moseley an’ the rest didn’t want to go into the army, an’ we’re bound we won’t; but for all that we’re not the cowards that some folks take us to be.”

“You have something on your mind, and I am sure of it,” said Ned, as the man touched a match to his pipe and arose from his seat on the porch. “If you will tell me what it is, so that I can carry it to Rodney, I’ll give you a pair of shoes for yourself and Moseley.”

“Them’s jest the things that Tom Randolph offered to give me if I would guide them Home Guards to Mr. Gray’s cotton,” said Lambert with a grin ,“an’ now I’m goin’ to get’em without goin’ to all that trouble an’ risk. Beats me how Rodney can fight the Yanks the best he knows how for fifteen months, an’ then turn square around an’ buy shoes an’ salt an’ things of ’em. Looks to me as though the Yanks would ’a’ shot him the first thing they done.”

“They are not savages, to shoot a man after he quits fighting,” said Ned impatiently. “It takes Confederate Home Guards to do that. What do you say? Do you want the shoes or not?”

“Bring ’em out, an’ I will tell you all I had in my head when I rid into this yard,” was the answer, and Ned turned about and went into the house. When he returned he brought the shoes, which Lambert received with the remark that he knew some planters in the neighborhood who had willingly paid fifty dollars for footwear that wasn’t half as good.

“But if they had had greenbacks instead of rebel scrip they could have got their shoes for a good deal less,” replied Ned. “There isn’t a Confederate in the country loyal enough to refuse Yankee money when it is offered to him. Major Morgan wouldn’t do it. Now, what are your plans?”

“The only thoughts I had in my head when I rid into the yard, was that I would come here an’ get a bit of good tobacker, an’ tell you an’ Rodney that Tom Randolph was tryin’ to have your cotton burned,” replied Lambert, placing the shoes under his arm, and backing away as if he feared Ned might try to snatch them. “That’s all, honest Injun.”

“And haven’t you hit upon any plan to head those Home Guards off?”

“Nary plan, kase they aint found the cotton yet. When they do, like as not I’ll think up somethin’.”

“Then it will be too late to save the cotton,” said Ned in disgust. “If you are going to do anything, you want to move before they get into the swamp.”

“They’ll be some cotton burned, most likely; I aint sayin’ there won’t,” observed Lambert, placing one hand on his mule’s neck and vaulting lightly upon his back. “But you can tell Rodney that his paw’s will stay on the ground as long as anybody’s. That’s the onliest plan I’ve got in my head. When I get time to think up somethin’ else I’ll let you know.”

Lambert rode out of the yard, stopping on the way to put up the bars behind him, and Ned Griffin went in to his unfinished supper. His mother, who had overheard every word that passed between him and his visitor, looked frightened.

“I can’t imagine how the thing got wind,” said Ned in reply to her inquiring glances, “but Lambert seems to know all about it. I am not afraid that he will lisp it, but I am afraid it will get to the knowledge of some enemy who will set Morgan after us.”

“O Ned, that would be dreadful,” said Mrs. Griffin with a perceptible shudder.

“I believe you. I don’t know what the penalty is for helping a deserter, but I believe the major would send us to the front to pay us for it.”

“I think you ought to tell Rodney,” said Mrs. Griffin.

“He knows it as well as I do and is quite as anxious; but the man can’t walk or ride, and how are we going to get him inside the Yankee lines? We can’t take him there in a carriage, for the roads are too closely watched. Of course I shall stand Rodney’s friend, but my ‘rough guess’ is that we’ll wish that friend of ours had gone somewhere else for the help he needed.”

That night Ned Griffin was aroused from a sound sleep by his mother, who rapped upon the door of his room, and told him in a trembling, excited voice that either Lambert had proved himself a traitor, or else the Pearl River ruffians had stumbled upon some enemy of Mr. Gray who was willing to act as guide, for they had certainly found the cotton and fired it. Ned was thunderstruck. He hurried on the few clothes he could find in the dark conveniently, and ran out to the porch; but when he had taken one look at the bright spot on the sky, which seemed to be growing brighter and larger every moment, and compared its bearings with those of well-known landmarks in the range of his vision, he drew a long breath of relief.

“I almost knew that Lambert did not tell the truth when he assured me he had nothing on his mind,” said Ned to his frightened mother, who had followed him to the porch. “Go back and sleep easy. That isn’t Mr. Gray’s cotton.”

“Are you quite sure of it? How do you know?” inquired Mrs. Griffin. “It must be cotton, for there is no house in that direction.”

“Stand here in front of me and I will show you why I know it is not Mr. Gray’s,” answered Ned. “Now, squint along the side of that post that stands on the edge of the gallery, and bring your eye to bear on that low place in the timber-line. Do you see it? Well, there’s where Mr. Gray’s cotton is. The pile that’s burning is half a mile farther off and a mile farther to the right.”

“Do you know who owns it?”

“It belongs to Mr. Randolph, who has nobody to thank for it but his dutiful son Tom.”

“Ned, do you know what you are saying?” said his mother somewhat sharply.

“I am quite sure on that point. Tom was too handy with his sword in the first place, and with his tongue in the second. He ought to have had better sense than to put such an idea into Lambert’s head. That man can do as much damage of this sort as he likes, and those who don’t know any better will blame the rebel guerillas or the Yankee cavalry for it.”

“Do you think Lambert started that fire?”

“I am as well satisfied of it as though I had stood by and seen him strike the match that set it going. Half an hour more will tell the story at any rate. Now you run back to bed, and I will stay here and watch that low place in the trees I showed you a moment ago. If no blaze appears in that direction I shall know that this is Lambert’s work.”

Mrs. Griffin retired, and Ned sat there on the porch with the hounds for company, and looked first at the bright glow on the sky and then at the low place in the timber, until day dawned and Mr. Gray and two or three of his neighbors rode up to the bars and accosted him.

“Have you been in there?” asked his employer anxiously.

“No, sir,” replied Ned emphatically. “I saw the fire, but not knowing what sort of men I might find around it I thought it best to keep away from it. But I don’t think it was your cotton.”

He did not say that he was as certain as he wanted to be that the loss was Mr. Randolph’s, and that it had been brought upon him by Tom’s insane desire to be revenged upon some members of the Gray family, for he knew there were one or two men in the party who would not rest easy until they had seen Tom severely punished. So he awaited an opportunity to say a word to Mr. Gray in private.

“I am sorry it was anybody’s cotton, but of course I should be glad to know it was not mine,” said Ned’s employer, with an effort to smile and look as cheerful as usual. “But if mine didn’t go last night it may go next week, so I don’t know that it makes much difference. Between Yankees and Confederates we planters stand a poor show of selling a pound of this almost priceless commodity.”

“Sixty cents a pound!” groaned one of Mr. Gray’s companions. “Good money, too, worth a hundred cents on a dollar, and now it has vanished in flames and smoke.”

“It wasn’t your cotton either, Mr. Randall,” Ned hastened to assure him. “Rodney and I have spent two weeks locating the cotton hidden in our swamp, and we can tell within two points of the compass the direction in which every planter’s property lies from his gallery and mine. The pile that was burned last night was half-way between yours and Mr. Gray’s.”

“Whose was it, then?”

“Mr. Randolph’s.”

“I am very sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Gray earnestly. “If it is the truth, Mr. Randolph will be left in very bad shape.”

“Not worse than the rest of us, I reckon,” said Randall impatiently. “He did all he could to help on the war, and now he’s afraid to go to the front and help fight it out. It serves him right.”

Mr. Gray might have retorted that there were others in the same boat—that Mr. Randall himself had been a fierce secessionist when the war first broke out and the Union armies and gunboats were far away, but now professed to be a strong Union man because he was anxious to save his cotton from being confiscated; but he said not a word in reply. He turned away from the bars, and Ned Griffin hastened to the stable-yard to put the saddle on his horse. His riding nag and Rodney’s were among the few that had been left to their owners when Breckenridge’s army retreated after the battle of Baton Rouge, and the reason they were left was because the boys had done so much hospital duty both before and after the fight. The rebel soldiers repaid their kindness by doing as little stealing as possible under the circumstances; but when the rear-guard disappeared from view the two friends could not find any bacon and meal for breakfast. But their flocks of chickens and the few scrub cows that were relied on to supply the plantations with milk and butter were not molested, and Ned and Rodney were thankful for that. The former came up with Mr. Gray and his party before they had gone very far, and when they reached Rodney’s place they were joined by Rodney himself, who seemed to be on the watch for them. He waved his hat in the air when he saw his father and Ned approaching, but put it on his head quickly when he discovered that they were not alone. In a moment more he would have said something to be sorry for, because he knew whose cotton had been burned and who was responsible for it. After greeting his father and exchanging opinions with him and his friends, he fell back to the rear and rode by Ned’s side, but could find no opportunity to compare notes with him. However, each understood what the other would have said if he could.

Half an hour’s riding brought them to the pile of smoking cinders and ashes that covered the spot where Mr. Randolph’s cotton had been concealed inside a dense thicket of trees and bushes whose interior had been cleared away to receive it. The road made by the heavy four-mule wagons in passing in and out of the woods had been so carefully filled with logs and tree-tops that scarcely a trace of it could be seen now, and its owner had indulged in the hope that, with the exception of a few neighbors and faithful servants, no one knew the hiding-place of all that was left of his once abundant wealth; but some enemy had found it out, and he was a ruined man. This was the opinion expressed by every one of Mr. Gray’s party, for when they came to examine the ground, which they did immediately upon their arrival, they did not find a single hoof-print save those that had been made by their own riding horses.

“There’s no cavalry been in here,” said Mr. Randall, who was the first to give utterance to the thoughts that were in the minds of all, “and, according to my way of thinking, that proves something.”

There were a few half-consumed bales on the outside of the smoking pile, and it was while the party was engaged in pulling these farther out of reach of the fire that Mr. Randolph and his neighbor appeared on the scene. Mr. Walker looked somewhat relieved, but remarked in an undertone that there might have been more than one fire even if he didn’t see it, and rode away at a rapid pace to assure himself of the safety of his own cotton, while Mr. Randolph sat on his mule and gazed mournfully at the blackened pile before him. There was no one who could say a word to comfort him, for by this time the planters were all satisfied in their own minds that someone with whom they were well acquainted had done the work; and if that was the case, it might not be a great while before their own cotton would disappear in the same way. They gradually drew away and left him to his gloomy reflections, and then it was that Rodney and Ned had a chance to compare notes and say a word to Mr. Gray in private. When the latter had listened to Ned’s story, all he had to say was that it would have been better for the community if Mr. Randolph had not been so persistent in his efforts to have Tom released from military duty. Of course he and the boys did not fail to satisfy themselves that the cotton in which they were most interested was still safe in its place of concealment, and Mr. Randolph did the same; that is, he spent all the forenoon in visiting the different localities in which his neighbors’ cotton had been hidden, and when he found, as he had suspected from the first, that he was the only sufferer, his thoughts were bitter and revengeful indeed. To make matters worse Mr. Walker said to him while they were on their way home:

“If you were the only Confederate in the settlement I could easily explain this business; but why you should be singled out among so many is something I can’t understand, unless it is because your son Tom has served the cause with too much zeal.”

“Tom hasn’t done any more than others, nor as much,” replied Mr. Randolph. “Rodney Gray served fifteen months in the army, and here he is living in perfect security and entirely unmolested by our conscript officers, although he is known to be hand-and-glove with the enemies of his country. I believe he has assisted escaped Yankee prisoners, even if others do not.”

“Perhaps he has,” said Mr. Walker, who was one of those disbelieving ones who laughed the loudest when Tom told of his desperate fight with “Uncle Sam’s Lost Boys,” who had been chased by bloodhounds while they were terrorizing the country between Camp Pinckney and Mooreville. Mr. Walker knew, of course, that there were four escaped prisoners somewhere in the woods, who ran when they could, and killed their pursuers as often as a fight was forced upon them, but he did not believe that Tom Randolph had been a captive in their hands as he pretended, or that he had escaped by knocking his guard on the head with the butt of a musket. He knew Tom too well to put faith in any such story. He did not believe, either, that Rodney Gray would go back on his record as a loyal Confederate by helping runaway Yankees inside the lines at Baton Rouge.

“Perhaps he has, though it is a hard tale for me to swallow,” continued Mr. Walker. “But if you’d said that Rodney was given to helping deserters I’d believe you. He’s got one in hiding this very minute.”

“How do you know that?” demanded Mr. Randolph, now beginning to show some interest in what his companion was saying.

“You can’t keep anything from the niggers these times, and yesterday I overheard two of my house servants talking about it when they thought they were alone,” answered Mr. Walker. “It seems that Rodney and young Griffin found the man in the woods half dead from wounds and hunger and exhaustion, and took him home to nurse him back to health. There wouldn’t be anything so very bad about that, and I don’t suppose Major Morgan would object to it if he knew it; but the man doesn’t want to go back to camp, and as soon as he is able to travel Rodney allows to take him to the river. There’s something wrong in that, I reckon.”

“I should say there was,” exclaimed Mr. Randolph, who told himself that now was the time to make his more fortunate neighbor suffer as keenly as he was suffering himself in losing his valuable store of cotton. “Such work as that must be against the law, and the conscript officer ought to do something about it.”

“That’s what I think,” said Mr. Walker; and then the two relapsed into silence, for neither was willing to speak the thoughts that were passing through his mind.

When they reached the cross-roads they separated, Mr. Walker keeping on toward home, while Tom’s father, believing it to be a good plan to strike while the iron was hot, turned his mule in the direction of Kimberley’s store. He found Major Morgan there; in fact he was always there, for it was his place of business, and wasted not a moment in conveying to him the startling information he had received from his friend Walker: but to his unbounded surprise the major took it very coolly. He listened until Mr. Randolph had told his story and then broke out almost fiercely:

“Do you for a moment imagine that I would have been ordered here if I had not been thought capable of attending to affairs in my district? That news is old. I knew all about it a week ago.”

“Then why didn’t you arrest Rodney Gray a week ago?” said Mr. Randolph hotly.

“Because I am tired of working on evidence that is furnished me by tale-bearers. You’ve got something against that young Gray or you would not tell me this. I am satisfied to let that deserter stay where he is for the present. He’s getting well there; he would die at Camp Pinckney.”

“You ought to be inside the Yankee lines,” declared Mr. Randolph, his rage getting the better of his prudence. “There’s where you belong.”

“And there’s where you will start for if you don’t leave my office this instant,” roared the major, rising to his feet and upsetting his chair in the act. “Captain!”

But Mr. Randolph did not linger for the captain to present himself. He hastened through the door, glancing nervously at the soldiers he passed on the way for fear they might stop him, swung himself upon his mule, and started for home, lost in wonder. It seemed that in some very mysterious manner Rodney had gained an influence with the crusty conscript officer equal to that which he exercised with the Federals in Baton Rouge. Well, he had; but there was no mystery about it, only a little strategy. Rodney had been intrusted by the major with a few gold pieces which he had exchanged in Baton Rouge for greenbacks, and it wasn’t likely that the officer was going to be hard on the boy who kept his pocket filled with good money. Even inside the Confederate lines greenbacks passed at par, and would buy more than rebel scrip, on which there was a heavy discount. But Rodney did not carry news; that is to say, neither side could wring from him a word of information concerning the doings of the other side. The Federal provost marshal knew this and so did Major Morgan, and the consequence was they were both willing to trust him. To quote Rodney’s own language, he had fought for fame and didn’t get it, and now he was working for money. All he had in prospect was wrapped up in his father’s cotton, which was the source of no little anxiety and trouble to him.

Rodney was not aware that the major knew he was harboring a rebel deserter, who had been badly wounded while escaping from the stockade at Camp Pinckney, and was careful to keep the fact from the knowledge of all except those who could be trusted. He did not care to receive callers, for fear there might be a spy or mischief-maker among them, and relied upon his hounds to give him warning when anyone rode up to the front bars. They acted so savagely when they rushed in a body down the walk to meet a stranger, that the latter, whoever he might be, usually thought it prudent to hail the house before venturing to dismount, thus giving Rodney time to get the deserter into some inner room where he would be out of sight. But one morning, about two weeks after the occurrence of the events we have just recorded, he had visitors so many in number that they stood in no fear of the hounds, nor did they hail the house. They simply threw down one or two of the top bars, jumped their horses over the rest, and came up on a gallop, their leader drawing rein in front of the open door, just in time to catch a momentary glimpse of the deserter as he vanished into a back room. Rodney’s heart sank. He had had all his work and worry for nothing. Of course his unwelcome visitors, who were Federal cavalrymen, would take the deserter to Baton Rouge when they went and ship him off to a Northern prison. The officer in command of the squad, which was a much larger one than Rodney had ever seen scouting through the country before, proved to be a captain whose acquaintance he had formed during one of his visits to the provost marshal’s office, and he walked out on the porch and faced him as if he had nothing to conceal.

“Good-morning,” said he, with a military salute. “What brought you out here in such a hurry and so far from your base?”

The captain waved his hand toward the back-yard as if to say to his men that they were at liberty to break ranks and quench their thirst at the well, and then he answered Rodney’s question.

“We came out to pay our respects to the conscript officer in Mooreville, but he was uncivil enough to light out before we could exchange a word with him,” said the captain. “We didn’t want to ride all the way out here for nothing, and so we changed our scouting party into a cotton-burning expedition. I don’t suppose you would know a bale of cotton if you ran against it, would you?”

The words were spoken in jest, but Rodney knew there was a good deal of truth in them, for he looked over the captain’s shoulder and saw a negro standing at the bars under guard. He was one of Mr. Randall’s field-hands, who had assisted in hauling his master’s cotton into the swamp.