“Oh, he isn’t dead,” said the captain, “but he’s too badly hurt to go any farther just now. Besides, we can’t move as rapidly as we would like as long as we have him with us, and I would take it as a favor if you will care for him until his master can be sent for.”
“Throw down those bars, Ned,” said Rodney, looking back over his shoulder as he started on a run for the house. “Bring him along and I will have a place fixed for him. Phantom bushwhackers!” he said to himself. “Now who do you suppose they were? Not Lambert and his gang certainly, for they haven’t the pluck to do such a thing; but I can think of no others who would be likely to turn bushwhackers. Now’s your chance for freedom and safety,” he added, pausing long enough to shake hands with the deserter and help him down from the porch. “Be ready to mount behind one of those Yanks when you get the word, and good luck to you.”
Rodney’s first care was to see that the wounded guide was made as comfortable as circumstances would permit, and his second to send one of his own field-hands to bring Mr. Randall and a doctor. After that, when he had answered a farewell signal from the deserter, and the last of the Federal column had disappeared down the road, he and Ned went back to the porch, and sat down to talk the matter over.
“I am as frightened now as I ever was in the army,” said Rodney honestly. “I never could stand a mystery.”
“There’s no mystery about this business,” replied Ned. “The Yanks lost their guide, and had sense enough to give up the search and come back. That’s all there is of it.”
“But who shot him?”
“Lambert and his crowd, and nobody else,” answered Ned positively. “If they were Home Guards, why were they so careful that their bullets should miss everyone except the darky? They didn’t want to hurt the soldiers; they only wanted to send them back, and they took the only method they could to do it.”
“Well, if it was Lambert, and he is determined to protect that cotton for his own profit, how am I going to haul it from the swamp myself if I ever have a chance to move it?” demanded Rodney. “Will he not be likely to bushwhack me too?”
“By gracious!” gasped Ned, sinking back in his chair, “this is a very pretty mess, I must say. I never once thought of such a thing; but if that’s his game, he’ll bushwhack you or anybody else who tries to move that cotton. However,” he added a moment later, his face brightening as a cheering thought passed through his mind, “what’s the odds? We are not ready to move the cotton yet, and until we are let’s take comfort in the thought that no one who wants to steal it, be he Union or rebel, will dare venture near it. Perhaps by the time you are ready to sell it, Lambert will have been bushwhacked himself. How do you intend to treat him from this time on?”
“As an enemy with whom I cannot afford to be at outs,” replied Rodney. “If he does any work for me I shall pay him for it; and although I shall not try to put any soldiers on his trail, I’ll go into the woods myself and hunt him down like a wild hog the minute I become satisfied that he is trying to play me false. I came to this plantation on purpose to watch father’s cotton, and I really wonder if Lambert imagines he can spirit it away without my knowing anything about it.”