Sailor Jack, the Trader

by Harry Castlemon

“Not worse than the rest of us, I reckon,” said Randall impatiently. “He did all he could to help on the war, and now he’s afraid to go to the front and help fight it out. It serves him right.”

Mr. Gray might have retorted that there were others in the same boat—that Mr. Randall himself had been a fierce secessionist when the war first broke out and the Union armies and gunboats were far away, but now professed to be a strong Union man because he was anxious to save his cotton from being confiscated; but he said not a word in reply. He turned away from the bars, and Ned Griffin hastened to the stable-yard to put the saddle on his horse. His riding nag and Rodney’s were among the few that had been left to their owners when Breckenridge’s army retreated after the battle of Baton Rouge, and the reason they were left was because the boys had done so much hospital duty both before and after the fight. The rebel soldiers repaid their kindness by doing as little stealing as possible under the circumstances; but when the rear-guard disappeared from view the two friends could not find any bacon and meal for breakfast. But their flocks of chickens and the few scrub cows that were relied on to supply the plantations with milk and butter were not molested, and Ned and Rodney were thankful for that. The former came up with Mr. Gray and his party before they had gone very far, and when they reached Rodney’s place they were joined by Rodney himself, who seemed to be on the watch for them. He waved his hat in the air when he saw his father and Ned approaching, but put it on his head quickly when he discovered that they were not alone. In a moment more he would have said something to be sorry for, because he knew whose cotton had been burned and who was responsible for it. After greeting his father and exchanging opinions with him and his friends, he fell back to the rear and rode by Ned’s side, but could find no opportunity to compare notes with him. However, each understood what the other would have said if he could.

Half an hour’s riding brought them to the pile of smoking cinders and ashes that covered the spot where Mr. Randolph’s cotton had been concealed inside a dense thicket of trees and bushes whose interior had been cleared away to receive it. The road made by the heavy four-mule wagons in passing in and out of the woods had been so carefully filled with logs and tree-tops that scarcely a trace of it could be seen now, and its owner had indulged in the hope that, with the exception of a few neighbors and faithful servants, no one knew the hiding-place of all that was left of his once abundant wealth; but some enemy had found it out, and he was a ruined man. This was the opinion expressed by every one of Mr. Gray’s party, for when they came to examine the ground, which they did immediately upon their arrival, they did not find a single hoof-print save those that had been made by their own riding horses.

“There’s no cavalry been in here,” said Mr. Randall, who was the first to give utterance to the thoughts that were in the minds of all, “and, according to my way of thinking, that proves something.”

There were a few half-consumed bales on the outside of the smoking pile, and it was while the party was engaged in pulling these farther out of reach of the fire that Mr. Randolph and his neighbor appeared on the scene. Mr. Walker looked somewhat relieved, but remarked in an undertone that there might have been more than one fire even if he didn’t see it, and rode away at a rapid pace to assure himself of the safety of his own cotton, while Mr. Randolph sat on his mule and gazed mournfully at the blackened pile before him. There was no one who could say a word to comfort him, for by this time the planters were all satisfied in their own minds that someone with whom they were well acquainted had done the work; and if that was the case, it might not be a great while before their own cotton would disappear in the same way. They gradually drew away and left him to his gloomy reflections, and then it was that Rodney and Ned had a chance to compare notes and say a word to Mr. Gray in private. When the latter had listened to Ned’s story, all he had to say was that it would have been better for the community if Mr. Randolph had not been so persistent in his efforts to have Tom released from military duty. Of course he and the boys did not fail to satisfy themselves that the cotton in which they were most interested was still safe in its place of concealment, and Mr. Randolph did the same; that is, he spent all the forenoon in visiting the different localities in which his neighbors’ cotton had been hidden, and when he found, as he had suspected from the first, that he was the only sufferer, his thoughts were bitter and revengeful indeed. To make matters worse Mr. Walker said to him while they were on their way home:

“If you were the only Confederate in the settlement I could easily explain this business; but why you should be singled out among so many is something I can’t understand, unless it is because your son Tom has served the cause with too much zeal.”

“Tom hasn’t done any more than others, nor as much,” replied Mr. Randolph. “Rodney Gray served fifteen months in the army, and here he is living in perfect security and entirely unmolested by our conscript officers, although he is known to be hand-and-glove with the enemies of his country. I believe he has assisted escaped Yankee prisoners, even if others do not.”

“Perhaps he has,” said Mr. Walker, who was one of those disbelieving ones who laughed the loudest when Tom told of his desperate fight with “Uncle Sam’s Lost Boys,” who had been chased by bloodhounds while they were terrorizing the country between Camp Pinckney and Mooreville. Mr. Walker knew, of course, that there were four escaped prisoners somewhere in the woods, who ran when they could, and killed their pursuers as often as a fight was forced upon them, but he did not believe that Tom Randolph had been a captive in their hands as he pretended, or that he had escaped by knocking his guard on the head with the butt of a musket. He knew Tom too well to put faith in any such story. He did not believe, either, that Rodney Gray would go back on his record as a loyal Confederate by helping runaway Yankees inside the lines at Baton Rouge.

“Perhaps he has, though it is a hard tale for me to swallow,” continued Mr. Walker. “But if you’d said that Rodney was given to helping deserters I’d believe you. He’s got one in hiding this very minute.”

“How do you know that?” demanded Mr. Randolph, now beginning to show some interest in what his companion was saying.