“Certainly; of course. That’s all right; but as for the price, I guess you will take what I please to——”
Captain Frazier stopped and looked hard at Jack, who gazed fixedly at him in return. Each knew what the other was thinking of.
“I don’t know that my uncle Rodney has any cotton,” continued Jack. “But if he has, you can afford to give him at least twenty-five cents a pound, greenback money, for it. He is bound to lose his niggers, and, if he is robbed of his cotton, what will he have to start on when the war is over?”
“Judging by the way you look out for the pennies you’re as much of a Yankee as I am,” said Captain Frazier with a laugh. “You’ll swamp my owners at this rate; but seeing it’s you, I suppose I shall have to submit to be robbed myself. Now listen while I tell you something. General Banks came here on purpose to take Port Hudson, Grant is coming down to capture Vicksburg, and when the Mississippi is open from Memphis to the sea there’ll be a fortune for the first man who is lucky enough to get a permit to trade in cotton on the river. My agent, who has an office ashore and to whom I will introduce you this afternoon, has heard enough to satisfy him that there are half a million bales concealed in the woods and swamps along the river, and that the owners, both Union and rebel, are eager to sell before the Confederate government has a chance to destroy it; and they would rather sell it for a small sum in good money than for ten times the amount in such money as they grind out at Richmond. Now, my idea is to charter a river steamer—a light-draught one—so that she can run up any small tributary, and put a man with a business head on board of her with instructions to buy every pound of cotton he can hear of between this port and Memphis. How would you like the berth?”
“That depends on whether or not I can be of any service to my uncle and his friends,” replied Jack. “What is there in it?”
“A big commission or a salary, just as you please.”
The matter wasn’t settled either one way or the other at this interview. Jack took dinner with Captain Frazier and went ashore with him in the afternoon to be introduced to the “agent,” who wasn’t an agent at all, but the head of a branch house which the enterprising Boston firm had established in New Orleans. He might properly have been called a cotton factor. When the captain told him who and what Jack was, and what he had done to make the firm’s first venture in contraband goods successful, adding that he was going up to Baton Rouge to see whether or not there was any cotton to be had at or near that place, the agent became interested, and promised to assist Jack by every means in his power.
“I didn’t see how a civilian could help me along with the military authorities,” said Jack, in concluding his interesting narrative, “but I wasn’t long in finding out. The agent, as I shall always speak of him, gave me a letter to the provost marshal in New Orleans and another to the officer holding the same position in Baton Rouge, and those letters made things smooth for me. I supposed, of course, that I should have to foot it from the city to Mooreville, but the marshal kindly furnished me with a horse to ride, the only condition imposed being that I should send it back the first good chance I got. Captain Frazier advanced me money to buy a citizen’s outfit and pay travelling expenses, and here I am.”
“And right glad I am to see you,” said Rodney, as Jack settled back in his chair with an air which seemed to say that he had finished his story at last. “But you are a slick one.”
“No more so than some other folks,” retorted Jack. “It’s a wonder you have not brought yourself into serious trouble by your smuggling and giving aid to escaped prisoners.”