Mrs. Griffin retired, and Ned sat there on the porch with the hounds for company, and looked first at the bright glow on the sky and then at the low place in the timber, until day dawned and Mr. Gray and two or three of his neighbors rode up to the bars and accosted him.
“Have you been in there?” asked his employer anxiously.
“No, sir,” replied Ned emphatically. “I saw the fire, but not knowing what sort of men I might find around it I thought it best to keep away from it. But I don’t think it was your cotton.”
He did not say that he was as certain as he wanted to be that the loss was Mr. Randolph’s, and that it had been brought upon him by Tom’s insane desire to be revenged upon some members of the Gray family, for he knew there were one or two men in the party who would not rest easy until they had seen Tom severely punished. So he awaited an opportunity to say a word to Mr. Gray in private.
“I am sorry it was anybody’s cotton, but of course I should be glad to know it was not mine,” said Ned’s employer, with an effort to smile and look as cheerful as usual. “But if mine didn’t go last night it may go next week, so I don’t know that it makes much difference. Between Yankees and Confederates we planters stand a poor show of selling a pound of this almost priceless commodity.”
“Sixty cents a pound!” groaned one of Mr. Gray’s companions. “Good money, too, worth a hundred cents on a dollar, and now it has vanished in flames and smoke.”
“It wasn’t your cotton either, Mr. Randall,” Ned hastened to assure him. “Rodney and I have spent two weeks locating the cotton hidden in our swamp, and we can tell within two points of the compass the direction in which every planter’s property lies from his gallery and mine. The pile that was burned last night was half-way between yours and Mr. Gray’s.”
“Whose was it, then?”
“Mr. Randolph’s.”
“I am very sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Gray earnestly. “If it is the truth, Mr. Randolph will be left in very bad shape.”