“You can’t keep anything from the niggers these times, and yesterday I overheard two of my house servants talking about it when they thought they were alone,” answered Mr. Walker. “It seems that Rodney and young Griffin found the man in the woods half dead from wounds and hunger and exhaustion, and took him home to nurse him back to health. There wouldn’t be anything so very bad about that, and I don’t suppose Major Morgan would object to it if he knew it; but the man doesn’t want to go back to camp, and as soon as he is able to travel Rodney allows to take him to the river. There’s something wrong in that, I reckon.”
“I should say there was,” exclaimed Mr. Randolph, who told himself that now was the time to make his more fortunate neighbor suffer as keenly as he was suffering himself in losing his valuable store of cotton. “Such work as that must be against the law, and the conscript officer ought to do something about it.”
“That’s what I think,” said Mr. Walker; and then the two relapsed into silence, for neither was willing to speak the thoughts that were passing through his mind.
When they reached the cross-roads they separated, Mr. Walker keeping on toward home, while Tom’s father, believing it to be a good plan to strike while the iron was hot, turned his mule in the direction of Kimberley’s store. He found Major Morgan there; in fact he was always there, for it was his place of business, and wasted not a moment in conveying to him the startling information he had received from his friend Walker: but to his unbounded surprise the major took it very coolly. He listened until Mr. Randolph had told his story and then broke out almost fiercely:
“Do you for a moment imagine that I would have been ordered here if I had not been thought capable of attending to affairs in my district? That news is old. I knew all about it a week ago.”
“Then why didn’t you arrest Rodney Gray a week ago?” said Mr. Randolph hotly.
“Because I am tired of working on evidence that is furnished me by tale-bearers. You’ve got something against that young Gray or you would not tell me this. I am satisfied to let that deserter stay where he is for the present. He’s getting well there; he would die at Camp Pinckney.”
“You ought to be inside the Yankee lines,” declared Mr. Randolph, his rage getting the better of his prudence. “There’s where you belong.”
“And there’s where you will start for if you don’t leave my office this instant,” roared the major, rising to his feet and upsetting his chair in the act. “Captain!”
But Mr. Randolph did not linger for the captain to present himself. He hastened through the door, glancing nervously at the soldiers he passed on the way for fear they might stop him, swung himself upon his mule, and started for home, lost in wonder. It seemed that in some very mysterious manner Rodney had gained an influence with the crusty conscript officer equal to that which he exercised with the Federals in Baton Rouge. Well, he had; but there was no mystery about it, only a little strategy. Rodney had been intrusted by the major with a few gold pieces which he had exchanged in Baton Rouge for greenbacks, and it wasn’t likely that the officer was going to be hard on the boy who kept his pocket filled with good money. Even inside the Confederate lines greenbacks passed at par, and would buy more than rebel scrip, on which there was a heavy discount. But Rodney did not carry news; that is to say, neither side could wring from him a word of information concerning the doings of the other side. The Federal provost marshal knew this and so did Major Morgan, and the consequence was they were both willing to trust him. To quote Rodney’s own language, he had fought for fame and didn’t get it, and now he was working for money. All he had in prospect was wrapped up in his father’s cotton, which was the source of no little anxiety and trouble to him.