“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.”