THE PHANTOM BUSHWHACKERS.
“I am not exactly on a cotton-burning expedition either,” continued the
captain, after he had drained the gourd which one of his men brought
him, filled with water fresh from the well, “but I am ordered to look
around and find it, so that I can tell whether or not it will pay the
government to send out wagons to haul it in. But if it is in such a bad
place that we can’t get it out, of course we shall have to burn it to
keep the enemy from profiting by it. I understand that there is a good
deal of cotton hidden about here somewhere, but I hope yours is where
nobody will find it.”
“I haven’t a bale to bless myself with,” replied Rodney.
“Perhaps not, but your father has; several of them,” said the officer
with a smile. “But I tell you it will go against the grain for us to
touch anything that belongs to you, after what you did for some of our
escaped prisoners.”
“Then why can’t you give us a chance to take it inside your lines and
sell it?” inquired Rodney. “If it is the policy of the Federal
government to drain the South of cotton, don’t you see that every bale
we put into your hands will be one bale less for the Confederates?”
“I understand that very well, but you see your rebel record is dead
against you. You fought us like fury for more than a year, and now, when
you find that you are in a fair way to get soundly whipped, you want to
turn around and make money out of us. That plan won’t work, Johnny. If
you could blot out your war record, or if you knew some solid Union man
you could trust to sell your cotton for you, why then——”
“There isn’t a man, Union or rebel, in Louisiana that I would trust to
do work of that kind,” declared Rodney with emphasis. “I don’t say
whether my father has any cotton or not; but if he has he would tell you
Yanks to burn it and welcome before he would give any friend of his a
chance to cheat him out of it. Who buys cotton in the city—the
government?”
“No; speculators. The government grabs it without so much as saying ‘by
your leave.’”
“Do you give those speculators military protection?”
“Not yet. They take their own chances, and protect themselves if they go
outside the pickets. But they are working for protection, and some day
they’ll get it.”
“Do they pay in gold?”
“Not as anybody has ever heard of,” replied the captain with a laugh.
“Confederate scrip for one thing, and——”
“I wouldn’t look at it,” exclaimed Rodney. “I wouldn’t give a bale of
good cotton for a cart-load of Confederate scrip.”
“A fine loyal grayback you are to talk that way about your country’s
shinplasters,” said the captain with another hearty laugh. “If all rebel
soldiers are like you, I don’t see why your armies didn’t fall to pieces
long ago.”
“It is because they are held together by discipline that would drive
Union soldiers into mutiny in less than a week,” said Rodney bitterly.
“I’ll take to the woods with the rest of the outlaws before they shall
ever have an opportunity to try it on me again, and I know hundreds of
others who feel the same way. But I wish you would tell a sorry rebel
how to change cotton into money. If you will, I may become a trader
myself.”
“If by _money_ you mean something besides Confederate rags, I must tell
you that it is what you will not see until every rebel has laid down his
arms and quit fighting the government, because all cotton brought within
our lines has to be purchased on contracts for payment at the close of
the war——”
“Then go ahead with your burning expedition,” said Rodney, who thought
he had never heard anything quite so preposterous. “You’ll get mighty
little cotton about here on those terms.”
“——at the close of the war,” continued the captain, paying no heed to
the interruption, “because, if paid for in coin or green-backs, the
money would be sure, sooner or later, to find its way into the rebel
treasury. Your authorities will not steal their own money, for they know
how worthless it is; but they’ll steal ours, and use it too, every
chance they get. I suppose that darky out there at the bars can show me
where the cotton is concealed?”
“He knows where every bale of it is,” answered Rodney. “He helped hide
it.”
“He declares he don’t want to go to Baton Rouge with us, but if he acts
as my guide I shall have to take him along, or you fellows who lose
cotton will kill him.”
“And no doubt you will kill him if he refuses to act as your guide, so
he is bound to be killed any way you fix it,” said Rodney in disgust.
“He’ll not be harmed if he stays at home after you leave, and nobody
knows it better than he does. Ask him and see.”
“Prepare to mount!” shouted the captain, thinking his men had wasted
time enough at the well. “By the way,” he added, in a lower tone, “who’s
your company, and why did he dig out in such haste when I rode up to the
door? He’s a reb, I know it by the cut of his jib.”
“He’s a conscript I know, but he’s a deserter as well, and as good a
Union man as you are. He was in pretty bad shape when I found him
running from the hounds, but he is able to travel now, and if you will
leave him here a few days longer he will be glad to take refuge inside
your lines,” whispered Rodney, believing that the surest way for his
patient to escape trouble was to give the captain opportunity to parole
him then and there. “He hasn’t done any fighting, and never means to if
he can help it.”
“Then he can stay and welcome, for all I care,” replied the captain. “I
never run a man in as a prisoner unless I have reason to think he is
dangerous.”
“Where did you find Mr. Randall’s black man, and how did you come to
pick him up for a guide?” inquired Rodney.
“I don’t know that I ought to tell you, but didn’t one of your neighbors
lose some cotton a while ago? His name is Randolph, and he wants us to
look out for a worthless fellow named Lambert, who, he thinks, burned
the cotton for him. He told me to go quietly up to Randall’s and ask for
Mose, and I would find in him a good guide; but I was in no case to
speak Randolph’s name in anybody’s hearing, and you see what pains I
have taken not to do it. But I don’t care. It’s spite work on Randolph’s
part.”
“Of course it is,” answered Rodney, who was so discouraged that he had
half a mind to say that he would return to the army, and stay there
until one side or the other was whipped into submission. “Mr. Randolph
will work against everyone in the settlement now.”
“Very likely. Misery loves company, you know; and perhaps there are more
men working against you than you think for. Do you know this Lambert,
and has he any cause to be down on you?”
“I do know him, but he hasn’t the shadow of an excuse to be at enmity
with me or any of my family,” said Rodney in surprise. And then it was
on the end of his tongue to add that Lambert was working for
him—standing guard over his cotton to see that no one troubled it, but
he afterward had reason to be glad that he did not say it.
“Then he is jealous, or I should say envious, of you, because you are
rich and he is poor,” said the captain, reining his horse about in
readiness to follow his men, who were now riding toward the bars. “If he
and his friends can sell your cotton so that they can pocket the money
they’ll do it——”
“But they can’t. He shan’t,” exclaimed Rodney, who was utterly
confounded. “He hasn’t brains enough to carry out such a bare-faced
cheat, nor the power, either; though no doubt his will is good enough.”
“Randolph says it is; and he says further, that when Lambert finds that
he can’t make anything out of that cotton, he’ll burn it. But I must be
riding along. I’ll be back before dark, and if this deserter of yours
would be glad of my escort, I’ll take him to Baton Rouge with me. What
would your Home Guards do to you if they should jump down on you and
find him here under your roof?”
“It’s a matter I don’t like to think of,” answered Rodney, “and I shall
feel safer if you take him away. Good-by; but I can’t wish you good
luck. I wish I had never seen you,” he added under his breath, “for you
have robbed me of all my peace of mind. So Lambert is a traitor, is he?
and my plan for gaining his good will hasn’t amounted to shucks. I’ll
tell father about it the first thing in the morning, and would do it
to-day if I didn’t want to see that captain when he returns.”
The deserter came out of his hiding-place when summoned, and eagerly
promised to be on hand to accompany the Federal soldiers to Baton Rouge.
He didn’t know what he would do for a living when he got there, he said,
but it would be a great comfort to know that he would not be forced into
the army to fight against the old flag. Rodney was too down-hearted to
say anything encouraging, but he gave him a short note to Mr. Martin,
who would see that he did not suffer while he was looking for
employment. Then he walked out on the porch, for he wanted to be alone,
and at that moment Ned Griffin rode into the yard.
“O Rodney!” he exclaimed. “Did that cotton-burning expedition stop here,
and do you know that there’s the very mischief to pay? That nigger of
Randall’s will never show them where his master’s cotton is hidden, but
he’ll take them as straight as he can to yours and Walker’s. I tell you
that cotton is gone up unless we do something.”
“Have you any suggestions to make?” asked Rodney.
“Let’s engage all the teams we can rake and scrape and haul it somewhere
else,” said Ned at a venture.
“What good will that do? It’s in as fine a hiding-place now as there is
in the country, and where are the wagons to come from? And the harness?
It is all I can do to find gears for eight plough-mules.”
Ned rode away to turn his horse into the stable-yard, spent a long time
in taking a drink at the well, and finally came back and sat down on the
porch.
“What do you think of that scoundrel Lambert, anyway?” he inquired.
“That my plan for getting on his blind side did not work as well as we
thought it was going to. He has got even with Tom Randolph for drawing a
sword on him, and now he intends to get square with my father for
threatening him with a nigger’s punishment.”
“I was with the mob that night,” said the young overseer angrily, “heard
every word that was said, and know that your father never threatened
Lambert with anything. He defended him and Tom as well, and sent me to
warn them that they had better clear out while the way was open to them.
And the last time I saw Lambert he pretended to be grateful to Mr. Gray
for what he said and did that night. Oh, the villain!”
But it did no good to rail at Lambert for his perfidy, nor yet to
discuss the situation, for the one was safely out of their reach, and
talking and planning only served to show them how very gloomy and
perplexing the other was. It was simply exasperating to know that they
were utterly helpless, but that was the conclusion at which they finally
arrived. Time might make all things right, or it might reduce Mr. Gray
to poverty; and all they could do was to wait and see what it had in
store for them.
Ned Griffin had been in Rodney’s company about two hours when one of the
hounds suddenly gave tongue, and the whole pack went racing down to the
bars. There was no one in sight, but after listening a moment the boys
heard the tramping of a multitude of hoofs up the road in the direction
in which the Federal soldiers had disappeared with Mr. Randall’s
field-hand for a guide. As the boys arose to their feet the leading
fours of the column came into view.
“Sure’s you live that’s them,” whispered Ned. “But what brought them
back so soon?”
Rodney hadn’t the least idea, but suggested that possibly the negro
guide had missed his way.
“If he did he missed it on purpose; but that’s a thing he could not be
hired to do for fear the Yankees would shoot him,” replied Ned. “He may
have given them the slip.”
“Never in this world,” answered Rodney emphatically. “When that darky
left my bars he was riding double with one of the troopers, and there
was a guard on each side of him. If he tried to run, he is dead enough
now.”
The boys ran to the bars to wait for the captain, who rode at the head
of the column, to approach within speaking distance, and when he did the
words he addressed to them almost knocked them over. He appeared to be
as pleasant and good-natured as usual, but some of the men behind him
looked ugly.
“Why didn’t you tell me that that cotton down there in the swamp is
guarded by a battalion of phantom bushwhackers?” said he.
“A battalion of what?” exclaimed Rodney, as soon as he could speak.
“Bushwhackers. Sharpshooters,” replied the captain.
“Home Guards?” inquired Ned.
“I don’t know about that, but I judge that they have your cotton under
their protection, for all they tried to do was to kill the darky so that
he couldn’t show us where it was. The men who rode in the rear of the
line never heard the whistle of a bullet, although they sung around me
and the nig pretty lively; and when the nig dropped they ceased firing
on the instant. We charged the woods in every direction, but never saw
one of them, nor did they make the least attempt to ambush us, as they
could have done if they had felt like it.”
Rodney Gray had seldom been so astonished. He looked hard at the captain
and did not know what to say. The whole thing was a mystery he could not
explain on the spur of the moment. The captain sat on his horse in front
of the bars while he talked, but the line passed on until the rear fours
came up and halted. Then the boys saw that there was a rude litter slung
between two of the horses, and that the form of Mr. Randall’s
unfortunate field-hand was stretched upon it. Rodney walked up to the
litter at once, but Ned timidly held back. There was a crimson stain on
the bandage the negro wore about his head, and Ned could not endure the
sight of blood.
“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.”
“It’s the greatest scheme I ever heard of,” said Ned. “But it cannot be
carried out. We’ve got to go to work in earnest now to put up the bacon
and beef your father promised to give as the price of my exemption, and
while we are doing it, it will be no trouble for us to keep an eye on
that cotton.”
Rodney Gray afterward declared that work and plenty of it was all that
kept him alive during the next three months, and it is a fact that as
the year drew to a close, with anything but encouraging prospects for
the ultimate success of the Union forces in the field, Rodney’s spirits
fell to zero. Although he never confessed it to Ned Griffin, the latter
knew, as well as he knew anything, that all Rodney’s hopes and his
father’s were centred on the speedy putting down of the rebellion, but
just now it looked as though that was going to be a hard, if not an
impossible, thing to do. “Burnside’s repulse at Fredericksburg in the
East had its Western counterpart in Sherman’s defeat on the Yazoo, and
indeed the whole year presented no grand results in favor of the
national armies except the capture of New Orleans.” But if Rodney had
only known it, some things, many of which took place hundreds of miles
away and on deep water, were slowly but surely working together for his
good. He knew that General Banks had relieved General Butler in command
of the Department of the Gulf; that he had an army of thirty thousand
men and a fleet of fifty-one vessels under his command; that his object
in coming was to “regulate the civil government of Louisiana, to direct
the military movements against the rebellion in that State and in Texas,
and to co-operate in the opening of the Mississippi by the reduction of
Port Hudson,” which was on the east bank of the river twenty-five miles
above Baton Rouge. As he straightway made the latter place his base of
operations, and gradually brought there an army of twenty-five thousand
men, Mooreville and all the surrounding country came within his grasp.
Major Morgan and his fifty veterans took a hasty leave, Camp Pinckney
was abandoned, and Confederate scouting parties were seldom seen at
Rodney’s plantation and Ned’s, although it was an everyday occurrence
for companies of blue-coats to stop at one place or the other and make
inquiries about the “Johnnies” that were supposed to be lurking in the
neighborhood. They never said “cotton” once, and this led Ned Griffin to
remark that perhaps the new general had driven the speculators away from
Baton Rouge and did not intend to allow any trading in his department.
“Don’t say that out loud, or you will give me the blues again!”
exclaimed Rodney. “If it gets to Lambert’s ears, good-by cotton.”
“I didn’t think of that,” answered Ned, frightened at the bare
suggestion of such a misfortune. “It will be much more to our interest
to make Lambert believe, if we can, that traders will be thicker than
dewberries the minute Port Hudson and Vicksburg are taken. That will
make him hold his hand if anything will.”
As to Lambert, he “showed up” as often as he stood in need of any
supplies, and sometimes loitered about for half a day, as if waiting for
the boys to question him concerning a matter that, for reasons of his
own, he did not care to touch upon himself. He would have given
something to know what they thought of the “phantom bushwhackers” and
their methods, but Rodney and Ned never said a word to him about it. The
negro guide, who was more frightened than hurt, quickly recovered from
his injuries, and within a day or two after he was taken to his master’s
house ran away to the freedom he knew was awaiting him in Baton Rouge,
and that made one less to tell where the cotton was concealed.
“I suppose the next bushwhacker will be a fellow about my size,” was
what Rodney often said to himself. “I have half a mind to pounce on
Lambert the next time he comes here and take him to Baton Rouge, but I
don’t know whether that would be the best thing to do or not, and my
father can’t advise me.” Then he would recall the Iron Duke’s famous
ejaculation, and adapt it to his own circumstances by adding, “Oh, that
a Union man or the end would come!”
Since he was so positive that a Union man was the friend he needed, it
would seem that Rodney ought not to have been at a loss to find him
right there in the settlement. If there were any faith to be put in what
he saw and heard every time he went to Mooreville and Baton Rouge, there
were no other sort of men in the country—not one who had ever been a
Confederate or expressed the least sympathy for those who openly
advocated secession. According to their own story, scraps of which came
to Rodney’s ears now and then, Mr. Randolph and Tom had done little but
talk down secession and stand up for the Union ever since Fort Sumter
was fired upon, and Mr. Biglin, the red-hot rebel who put the
bloodhounds on the trail of the escaped prisoners Rodney was guiding to
the river, declared that his well-known love for the old flag had nearly
cost him his life. He was glad to see Banks’ army in Baton Rouge, he
said, for now he could speak his honest sentiments without having his
sleep disturbed by the fear that his rebel neighbors would break into
his house before morning and hang him to the plates of his own gallery.
The country was full of cowardly, hypocritical men like these, and what
troubled Rodney and Ned more than anything else was the fact that they
seemed to have more influence and be on closer terms with the Federals
than did the honest rebels who had ceased to fight because they knew
they were whipped. Rodney’s friend, Mr. Martin, who lived in Baton Rouge
and kept a sharp eye on these “converted rebels,” whose hatred for the
Union and everybody who believed in it was as intense and bitter as it
had ever been, told him that Mr. Biglin and others like him were using
every means in their power and making all sorts of false affidavits to
secure trade permits, and seemed in a fair way to get them too. Indeed,
so certain were they that they would succeed in their efforts, that they
were going out some day to look at the cotton in the Mooreville
district, and see what the prospects were for hauling it out. They were
even engaging teams to do the work. They were not to have military
protection, Mr. Martin said, but that was scarcely necessary, for the
Union cavalry had swept the country of Home Guards and conscript
soldiers for a hundred miles around.
“But the Union cavalry hasn’t cleared the country of the bushwhackers
who shot Mr. Randall’s nigger,” said Ned Griffin, who always had a
cheering word to say when Rodney was the most disheartened. “If Mr.
Martin’s story is true, I hope Biglin will come himself and give them a
fair chance at him.”
And Mr. Biglin did come himself, although Rodney thought he was too much
of a coward to venture so far into the country. He and half a dozen
other civilians rode into the yard one day and asked Rodney for a drink
of water, but that was only done to give them a chance to draw from him
a little information about cotton. Rodney greeted them in as friendly a
manner as he thought the occasion called for, and conducted them around
the house to the well.
“I tell you it seems good to get out in the fresh air once more, and to
know that while here I am in no danger of being gobbled up by a
conscript officer and hustled away to fight under a flag I have always
despised,” said Mr. Biglin, putting his hands into his pockets and
walking up and down in front of the well. “So you have turned overseer,
have you, Rodney?”
“I believe that was what I told you on the day I saw you in Mr.
Turnbull’s front yard,” was the answer. “I mean just before that darky
of yours came up——”
“Yes, yes; I remember all about it now,” said Mr. Biglin hastily. And
then he tried to turn the conversation into another channel, for fear
that Rodney would go on to tell that the information that darky brought
was what caused Mr. Biglin to put the hounds on the trail of the escaped
Union prisoners. “Fine place you have here. A little rough, of course,
but it’s new yet. And I presume it suits you, for, if I remember
rightly, you always were fond of shooting and riding to the hounds. Have
you any cotton?”
“Not a bale. Not a pound.”
Mr. Biglin looked surprised, and so did his companions. The former
looked hard at the boy for a moment, and then changed the form of his
inquiry.
“Oh, ah!” said he. “Has your father got any?”
“Perhaps you had better go and ask him,” replied Rodney.
“That’s just what we did not more than an hour ago, but he wouldn’t give
us any satisfaction.”
“Then you have good cheek to come here expecting me to give you any,”
said the young overseer, growing angry. “My father is quite competent to
attend to his own business.”
“I suppose he is. Why, yes; of course; but what’s the use of cutting off
your nose to spite your face? We know you have cotton and plenty of it;
and since you can’t sell it yourselves——”
“Why can’t we?” interposed Rodney.
Mr. Biglin acted as though he had no patience with one who could ask so
foolish a question.
“Because of your secession record,” said he. “You were in the Southern
army, and your father is a rebel.”
“So are you,” said Rodney bluntly.
“I may have appeared to be at times in order to save my life, but I
never was a secessionist at heart,” said Mr. Biglin loftily. “I don’t
care who hears me say it, I am for the Union now and forever, one
and—and undivided. And General Banks’ provost marshal, or whatever you
call him, knows it.”
“If he believes it, he is the biggest dunderhead in the world and isn’t
fit for the position he holds,” exclaimed Rodney. “I know you to be a
vindictive, red-hot rebel, and since things have turned out as they
have, I am sorry I did not tell the —th Michigan’s boys that you put the
hounds on——”
“I never did it in this wide world,” protested Mr. Biglin, trying to
look astonished, but turning white instead.
“Never did what?” inquired Rodney.
“Put hounds on anybody’s trail. You had better be careful what you say.”
“You don’t show your usual good sense in talking that way,” said one of
the civilians. “Our friend has influence enough to make you suffer for
it if he feels so inclined.”
“And I had influence enough to make his house a heap of ashes long ago
if I had felt like it,” retorted Rodney. “I can prove every word I say
any day and shall be glad of the chance.” And then he wondered what he
would do if his visitors should take him at his word. He knew that he
could not prove his assertions without mentioning the name of Mrs.
Turnbull, and that was something he could not be made to do until he had
her full and free consent.
“You are quite at liberty to tell what you know about me and my record
during this war,” observed Mr. Biglin, as he swung himself upon his
horse and turned the animal’s head toward the bars, “and you may _have_
to tell it, whether you want to or not.”
With this parting shot, which he hoped would leave Rodney in a very
uncomfortable frame of mind, Mr. Biglin rode away, followed by his
friends, and passing through the bars turned up the road leading toward
the swamp in which Mr. Gray’s cotton was concealed. No sooner had they
disappeared than Ned Griffin, who was always on the watch and knew when
Rodney had visitors he did not want to see, threw down the bars and rode
into the yard.