Remembering that Jack had promised to send “fuller particulars” when he felt more in the humor for writing, Rodney spent more time in riding to and from the provost marshal’s office than he did in managing his plantation, but that official had received no letters for him. In the meantime the situation at Vicksburg grew more encouraging every day. Severe battles had been fought and the soldiers of the Union, always victorious, had gained a footing below Vicksburg where there was no water to interfere with their movements, as there was in the inundated Yazoo country, and Colonel Grierson, at the head of seventeen hundred cavalry, was raiding through the State in the direction of Baton Rouge, stealing nothing but fresh horses and food for his men, but thrashing the rebels whenever he met them (except on one occasion when he lost seven hundred men in a single engagement), cutting railroads and telegraph lines in every direction, and destroying commissary trains and depots by the score. It was this famous raid which first “demonstrated that the Confederacy was but a shell, strong on the outside by reason of its organized armies, but hollow within and destitute of resources to sustain, or of strength to recruit these armies.”
“They say he’s coming sure enough,” remarked Ned Griffin one day, “although in some places he has had to ride over wide stretches of country where the water stood six feet deep on a level. That’s pluck. What are you going to do with our exemption bacon?”
“And our horses,” added Rodney. “If the Yanks are hungry when they reach this plantation, they can take the exemption bacon and welcome. I’d much rather they should have it than it should go to feed rebels. But our horses they can’t have; or at least they’ll have to hunt for them before they get them. Where is Grierson now?”
“They’ve got the report in Mooreville that he was last heard from up about Port Hudson,” replied Ned.
“Then we’ve no time to lose,” said Rodney. “His scouts, of course, are a long way ahead of him, and may be here any hour. Let’s take care of the horses the first thing we do. There’s nothing else on your place or mine worth stealing, unless it is the bacon.”
The boys were none too soon in looking out for their riding nags, for the expected scouts arrived the next morning about breakfast time, and although Rodney had seen some dusty, dirty, and ragged soldiers in his day, he told himself that these rough-riding Yankees, who threw down his bars and rode into the yard as though they had a perfect right there, would bear off the palm. They were a jovial, good-natured lot, however, and well they might be; for their long raid from La Grange, Tenn., was nearly finished. Another night would see them safely quartered among their friends in Baton Rouge.
“Hallo, Johnny,” was the way in which the foremost soldier greeted Rodney, who advanced to meet the raiders. “Where’s your well or spring or whatever it is you get drinking water from? Any graybacks around here? Trot out your guns and things of that sort, and save us the trouble of looking for them.”
“The well is around there,” replied Rodney, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “And there’s nothing in the house more dangerous than a case-knife. If you don’t believe it, look and see.”
This invitation was quite superfluous, for some of the raiders, who had ridden around to the well and dismounted, were in the house almost before Rodney ceased speaking. He heard their heavy footsteps in the hall in which his black housekeeper had just finished laying the breakfast, and when he turned about they had cleared the table of the victuals they found on it, and one was in the act of draining the coffee-pot.
“Where are all your horses, Johnny?” asked the latter, as he put down his empty cup. “Mine’s played out, and I must have another.”