“Right from headquarters. We didn’t ask for military protection, and it isn’t likely that we would have got it if we had; but we are at liberty to take as many bales of cotton through the lines as we can buy. General Banks’ signature is on our permit, and he is supreme in this Department.”
Before Mr. Gray and Jack went home that night a plan of operations had been decided upon. The former were to engage all the wagons and mules that could be found in the neighborhood to haul Mr. Gray’s four hundred bales to Baton Rouge, while Rodney was to seek an interview with Lambert and “buy him off” if he could. Rodney declared that he had the hardest part of the work to do, and he set about it, not by going into the woods to hunt up the ex-Home Guard, but by riding to the city to ask the advice and assistance of the provost marshal. As he was about to mount his horse he said to Marcy:
“If that man Lambert comes here while I am gone, please tell him to come again to-morrow morning, for I want to see him on important business. If you question him a little, no doubt you will be surprised at the extent of his information. There’s little goes on in the settlement that he doesn’t know all about.”
Rodney’s interview with the marshal must have been in the highest degree satisfactory, for when he came back at night he was laughing all over; but his cousin Marcy looked troubled.
“He’s been here,” said the latter, without waiting to be questioned, “and he was as impudent as you please.”
“It’s no more than I expected,” replied Rodney. “What did he say?”
“That them fellers might jest as well give up hirin’ teams to haul out that cotton till after you had made some sort of a bargain with him,” answered Marcy.
“That’s all right. Did he say he’d come to-morrow?”
“Yes, he said he would be here to listen to what you have to say, and if you don’t talk to suit him he’ll start another bonfire.”
“That’s all right,” said Rodney again. “I was afraid he might take it into his head to start it to-night, in which case I should be under the disagreeable necessity of bushwhacking him before I slept. But if he puts it off till to-morrow, he’ll never set any more bonfires. Did you ever hear of such impudence before?”