“But, Jack, I assure you that we were in sore need of the things I have smuggled through the lines,” said Rodney earnestly. “We couldn’t possibly get along without them.”
“And neither can I get along without making this war refund to my mother every dollar she is likely to lose by it,” answered his cousin. “The whole South is going to be impoverished before this thing is over. My folks had no hand in bringing these troubles upon us, and I don’t mean that they shall suffer through the folly of a few fanatics, if I can help it.”
“But, Jack, you will take up with the agent’s offer and put a trading boat on the river, will you not?” said Rodney.
“Port Hudson and Vicksburg have not been captured yet,” suggested Mrs. Gray.
“No, but they’re going to be,” said Jack confidently. “And until that happens I might better be at home than anywhere else, for I can’t do anything here. If I find that mother and Marcy are getting on all right, you have my promise that I will return and do my best to get your four hundred bales to market.”
“Bully for you,” exclaimed Rodney joyfully. “You are just the man we wanted to see after all. I wish you could take the cotton to-night, don’t you, father?”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will speak to the agent and Captain Frazier about it, and see if I can induce them to send a boat after your cotton, so that the Hyperion can take it out on her next trip. I might have made some such arrangement before I left New Orleans, but I didn’t know whether or not you had any cotton. What’s become of those bushwhackers of whom Uncle Rodney has given me an interesting account?”
“Do you mean Lambert and his men? I suppose they are still hiding in the swamp.”
“Protecting your cotton?” added Jack. “Well, they’ll have to be ‘neutralized,’ as McClellan said of the Merrimac. As I understand it, those bushwhackers don’t mean that you or anybody else shall touch that cotton unless they can make something by it. It’s a little the queerest thing I ever heard of, but so far they seem to have been your best friends.”
“I have been studying about that a good deal,” answered Rodney. “And the conclusion I have come to is that when we get ready to take[to take] charge of our property, and not before, we’ll have to get rid of Lambert in some manner. He is the leader, and if he were out of the way I think his men would scatter. I’ll make a prisoner of him if father will consent.”