“And besides, they don’t know that you have been conscripted, for they belong to the Pearl River bottoms, miles away from here.”
“No odds; Major Morgan’s men can give me all the dodgin’ I want to do, an’ if them Pearl River fellers don’t find that cotton till I show it to ’em they’ll never find it. I jest aint goin’ to run no fule chances on bein’ tooken to that camp.”
Tom Randolph wished now that he hadn’t broached the subject to Lambert at all, for what assurance had he that the man, whom he knew to be vindictive and untrustworthy, would not go straight to Mr. Gray and tell him all about it?
“I thought you were a friend of mine, but since you are not it’s all right,” said Tom, intimating by a wave of his hand that Lambert’s refusal was a matter of no moment whatever. “But come with me to the house, and let me see if I can’t find something for you.” And as he spoke he looked down at the man’s broken shoes and bare, sunbrowned ankles.
“Shucks!” exclaimed Lambert. “I don’t need to go beggin’ shoes an’ stockin’s of nobody; an’ as for the salt an’ store tea that you’ve been talkin’ about, I have them in the woods every day.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Tom bluntly.
“It don’t make no odds to me whether you do or not, but it’s a fact.”
“Where do you get them? You haven’t the cheek to go to Baton Rouge, after the part you played in having the place bombarded by the Union fleet. You wouldn’t dare show your face there, and I don’t believe you have any friends to bring goods through the lines for you. I haven’t forgotten that old man Gray wanted that mob to thrash me as if I were a nigger, and I hope you remember that he was strongly in favor of hanging you. Ned Griffin warned you, and you jumped out of bed and ran for your life.”
“Do you reckon I’ve disremembered all the things that happened that night?” said Lambert with a scowl. “I aint, I bet you, an’ mebbe you’ll find it out some of those days. I aint nobody’s coward, an’ I dast do a good many things when I make up my mind to it. You jest watch, an’ you’ll see fire some of those nights. But when you see it you may know that no Pearl River Home Guards didn’t have a hand in it.”
“Will you do it yourself?” said Tom gleefully.