“O Rodney, you must not attempt it,” exclaimed his mother. “Lambert has the reputation of being a dangerous man.”
“I don’t know where or how he came by that reputation,” said the boy with a smile. “I know he is treacherous, and if I should make the attempt and fail, I should have to look out for him. He’d as soon bushwhack me as anybody else. But I don’t intend to fail.”
Sailor Jack’s time was so short, and there were so many other things to be talked about, that this matter was presently dropped, to be taken up again and settled at some future day. When Jack started for Baton Rouge the next morning, with his uncle and cousin for company, the only conclusion they had been able to reach was that Mr. Gray should hold fast to his cotton, if he could, until he heard from Jack, who would forward his letter under cover to the provost marshal in Baton Rouge so that it would be sure to reach its destination. If it were sent to the care of Rodney’s Confederate friend, Mr. Martin, the Federal authorities might not take the trouble to deliver it.
The next step was to obtain the provost marshal’s consent to the arrangement, and that was easily done. He knew that Jack had risked his life for the Union, and that his cousin lent a helping hand to escaped prisoners as often as the opportunity was presented; so he readily promised to take charge of all the letters that came from the North addressed to Rodney Gray, and hand them over without reading them. He gave Jack a pass authorizing him to leave the city on business, and a note to the quartermaster which brought him a permit to take passage for New Orleans on one of the steamers attached to the quartermaster’s department. Rodney and his father saw him off and then turned their faces toward the hospitable home of Mr. Martin, where they were to remain until morning.
“It was just no visit at all,” said Rodney in a discouraged tone. “When Jack said he was a trader and that he had influential friends, I wouldn’t have taken anything I can think of now for our chances of getting that cotton off our hands. As the matter stands, everything depends on ‘ifs.’ If Marcy and his mother are getting on all right, and if Jack decides to come back and take up with Captain Frazier’s offer, we shall have a show; otherwise not.”
This state of affairs was galling to Rodney Gray, who could not bear to be kept in suspense; but exciting events were transpiring up the river every day, and in trying to keep track of them Rodney lost sight of his troubles for a brief season. General Grant, who had taken command of the army that was operating against Vicksburg, had gone to work as if he were thoroughly in earnest, and there wasn’t a soldier under him who was more anxious for his complete triumph than was this ex-Confederate hero of ours. Rodney was soldier enough to know that neither Vicksburg nor Port Hudson could be taken by assault, and that they could not be starved into surrender so long as supplies of every sort could be run into them from the Red River country. They must be surrounded on the river side as well as on the land side, and Rodney was impatient to learn what General Grant was going to do about it. Fortunately the latter had an able assistant in David D. Porter, who had commanded Farragut’s mortar schooners at New Orleans. He was now an acting rear admiral and commanded the Mississippi squadron, and most loyally did he second General Grant in his efforts to capture the rebel stronghold.
The very first move Porter made excited Rodney’s unbounded admiration and made his heart beat high with hope. He ordered the ram Queen of the West to run the batteries and destroy the transports that were engaged in bringing supplies to Vicksburg. Owing to some trouble with her steering gear it was broad daylight when the ram started on her dangerous mission, and she was a fair target for the hundred heavy guns which the rebels had mounted on the bluffs. But she went through, stopping on the way long enough to make a desperate attempt to sink the steamer Vicksburg, which the rebels, after General Sherman’s defeat at Chickasaw Bayou, had brought down from the Yazoo to be made into a gunboat. She failed in that, but ran by the batteries without receiving much injury, and began operations by capturing a steamer which she kept with her as tender, and burning three others that were loaded with provisions.
“If she keeps that up Vicksburg is a goner,” said Rodney to his friend Ned Griffin.
“One would think you are glad of it,” said the latter. “That’s a pretty way for a rebel soldier to talk.”
“Rebel soldier no longer,” replied Rodney. “I know when I have had enough. I’m whipped, and now I want the war to end. It’s bound to come some of these days, and I wish it might come this minute.”