"They'll jump down on the pair of them when they are good and ready, and think they can capture some important documents by doing it," answered Rodney. "You can't cross at Baton Rouge. You'll have to start from some point up the river. But we'll see the mail carrier if we can, and hear what he has to say about it."
CHAPTER XVI.
CAPTAIN RANDOLPH RECEIVES ORDERS.
Rodney Gray was an overseer now at all events, and being one of those uneasy fellows who must have something to occupy their minds at all times, and fond of hunting, he would have been as happy and contented as he wanted to be, if there had been no such things as Home Guards in the world. The Yankees at Baton Rouge he did not bother his head about. He had charge of 400 acres of land, 100 of which were under cultivation, and fifteen work hands—just enough to bring him under the exemption clause of the Conscription Act. For the privilege of staying at home and overseeing these hands the Confederate Government demanded of him 3000 pounds of salt pork and beef, or their equivalent in bacon, and Rodney expected to furnish the meat himself. There were many hogs running loose in the woods, and as the negro driver who had charge of the plantation previous to Rodney's coming had taken no pains to "tame" them by feeding them regularly, they were as wild as deer, and Rodney intended to hunt them as he would have hunted deer—"with rifle and with hounds."
The "great house" in which Rodney lived was very unlike the same dwelling on the home plantation. It was built of unhewn logs and contained two rooms, the wide hall between them being used as the dining room, both summer and winter. The kitchen, which stood a little distance away, was built of logs, and so were the negro cabins, corn-cribs, smoke houses, and the little stable in which his riding horse would find shelter in stormy weather; but taken as it stood the plantation was a valuable one, for, concealed somewhere in the dark recesses of the woods, that hemmed the cultivated fields in on all sides, were several hundred bales of cotton that was worth sixty cents a pound in Northern markets.
The driver had been so careless with his work and so lax with the hands that Rodney found plenty of things demanding his attention, but he could not think of settling down to business so long as Dick remained with him. When they parted it might be forever, and Rodney was reluctant to let him go. Mr. Martin told them that they need not come to the city under a week expecting to hear any news from the mail carrier, but they did not wait as long as that without hearing news from another source, and of the most exciting character too. On the morning of the third day after their arrival at the plantation, Dick looked over Rodney's shoulder as they sat at the breakfast table in the wide hall, and saw half a dozen armed men ride up to the bars. They stood there a minute or two looking up and down the road, and then three of them dismounted and came into the yard. At the same instant another similar squad came in sight and also rode up and stopped at the bars.
"Rebs for a dollar," whispered Dick.
"And not Home Guards, either," replied Rodney, as the two arose from the table and walked out to meet the visitors. "They are strangers."
"Well," said the foremost, who might have been an officer, though there was nothing on his coat to show it, "how does it come that a couple of likely lads like yourselves are here in citizen's clothes while everybody else is in the army?"