"If I had any cotton I would rather give it to our government for three cents than to our enemies for twenty times as much," declared Captain Tom, who, seeing that he did not possess a pound of the commodity in question, could afford to be very patriotic. He looked at his mother, expecting to hear her say that she would do the same; but she gazed down at her plate and said nothing. Sixty cents a pound! Reckoning each bale at 450 pounds that would make her husband's concealed cotton worth about $54,000, if it could only be placed in the hands of the Yankees without being confiscated. But there was the rub.
"Tom, you always were about half-witted," exclaimed his father, who was so angry that he spoke without thinking. "I would rather have sixty cents in greenback money than four dollars in Confederate scrip any day; and I don't see the use of your talking in that senseless way."
"But your cotton is in the swamp, and how are you going to get it to New York?" asked Mrs. Randolph.
"And how do you know that you and the darkeys who helped you put it there are the only ones who know where it is?" chimed in Tom. "The Lincoln hirelings have been stealing cotton all the way from Cairo to Vicksburg, and what assurance have you that some enemy of ours will not guide a gang of blue-coats from Baton Rouge to the place where it is hidden?"
"I have no assurance whatever, and that is one thing that robs me of sleep at night," replied Mr. Randolph; and the nervous way in which he puffed at his pipe and strode about the room showed that the thought made him uneasy every time it came into his mind. "Of course I stand a chance of losing it; but if I can keep it a few months longer I know it will be worth a big sum of money to us—and good money, too. One of our neighbors, who shall be nameless, showed me a couple of Northern papers he brought from Baton Rouge last night, and both of them contained a notice of that sale of cotton in New York. There were seventy bales of it, and it was confiscated at Port Royal. Some of the ranking officers in the city also told him that there was some talk of opening a trade in cotton at all points occupied by Federal troops, and that influential parties were applying by the hundred for permits. He could have told me more if he had felt like it, but Tom, your miserable Home Guards, whom I wish I had never heard of, made him shut his mouth. I am afraid I ruined myself utterly by helping you organize that company."
Too nervous and excited to say more, Mr. Randolph stepped through the window to the porch, and Tom left the table and went slowly upstairs. He could not have told what prompted him to do it, but when he reached his room he took off his fine uniform and arrayed himself in a suit of citizen's clothes. He stood his elegant sword up in the corner of his closet, and when it slipped down so that he could not close the door, he kicked it out of the way as he would have done with any other worthless piece of furniture. For some reason he seemed to have conceived a sudden and violent dislike to everything that reminded him of the service in which, one short year ago, his whole soul been wrapped up; and when he mounted his horse, which a darkey had brought to the door, and the animal began to prance and go sideways, as he had been taught to do, Captain Tom was so angry that he lashed him unmercifully with his whip, and would have kept him in a dead run all the way to the enrolling office, had it not been for an unexpected and somewhat startling interruption.
Although there were many extensive and well-cultivated plantations around Mooreville, there were some unbroken patches of timber which stretched away into the Pearl River country and beyond. This timberland was mostly low and intersected by innumerable little streams, which, when the Pearl was "booming" at certain seasons of the year, overflowed their banks and turned all the productive bottom into an immense swamp. It was here that Tom Randolph's hog-stealing lieutenant plied his vocation, though he might have had venison instead of pork, if he had not been too lazy to hunt for it; for the bottom was a famous place for game of all kinds. There were runaway negroes there too, by the score, and their numbers had increased wonderfully since the war broke out.
It was while Tom was galloping furiously past one of these patches of timber, which was separated from the road by a narrow field of corn, that his attention was attracted by the loud baying of a pack of hounds; but his mind was so fully occupied with the punishment he was inflicting upon his unoffending horse that he did not give much heed to it, until he caught sight of a couple of men riding swiftly through the corn a little in advance of him. When they reached the fence that ran between the field and the road one of them threw off the top rails so that they could jump their horses over it, while the other raised his hand as a signal for Tom to stop. Then he saw that the men were strangers to him, that they wore gray uniforms, were armed with carbines and sabres instead of squirrel rifles and shot guns, and wore plumes in their slouch hats instead of rooster feathers. They were veterans beyond a doubt; but where did they come from, and what were they doing in that country, which was supposed to be guarded by an efficient company of Home Guards? Their presence angered Captain Tom, and he wished he had the authority to order them back where they belonged without asking any questions; but they greeted him very civilly.
"Good-afternoon," said the foremost, as he leaped his horse over the ditch and came into the road where Tom was waiting for him; then he made a military salute which was promptly and gracefully returned. "Ah! I thought you were one of us from the start," continued the veteran. "What regiment?"
"I do not belong to any regiment," admitted Tom. "I am commander of a partisan company and hold a commission from the Governor."