“If by money you mean something besides Confederate rags, I must tell you that it is what you will not see until every rebel has laid down his arms and quit fighting the government, because all cotton brought within our lines has to be purchased on contracts for payment at the close of the war——”
“Then go ahead with your burning expedition,” said Rodney, who thought he had never heard anything quite so preposterous. “You’ll get mighty little cotton about here on those terms.”
“——at the close of the war,” continued the captain, paying no heed to the interruption, “because, if paid for in coin or green-backs, the money would be sure, sooner or later, to find its way into the rebel treasury. Your authorities will not steal their own money, for they know how worthless it is; but they’ll steal ours, and use it too, every chance they get. I suppose that darky out there at the bars can show me where the cotton is concealed?”
“He knows where every bale of it is,” answered Rodney. “He helped hide it.”
“He declares he don’t want to go to Baton Rouge with us, but if he acts as my guide I shall have to take him along, or you fellows who lose cotton will kill him.”
“And no doubt you will kill him if he refuses to act as your guide, so he is bound to be killed any way you fix it,” said Rodney in disgust. “He’ll not be harmed if he stays at home after you leave, and nobody knows it better than he does. Ask him and see.”
“Prepare to mount!” shouted the captain, thinking his men had wasted time enough at the well. “By the way,” he added, in a lower tone, “who’s your company, and why did he dig out in such haste when I rode up to the door? He’s a reb, I know it by the cut of his jib.”
“He’s a conscript I know, but he’s a deserter as well, and as good a Union man as you are. He was in pretty bad shape when I found him running from the hounds, but he is able to travel now, and if you will leave him here a few days longer he will be glad to take refuge inside your lines,” whispered Rodney, believing that the surest way for his patient to escape trouble was to give the captain opportunity to parole him then and there. “He hasn’t done any fighting, and never means to if he can help it.”
“Then he can stay and welcome, for all I care,” replied the captain. “I never run a man in as a prisoner unless I have reason to think he is dangerous.”
“Where did you find Mr. Randall’s black man, and how did you come to pick him up for a guide?” inquired Rodney.