Kitabı oku: «Rodney The Partisan», sayfa 6

CHAPTER VI
UNDER SUSPICION

From that time forward Rodney Gray had no reason to complain of being lonely. Captain Howard – that was the name of his new acquaintance – introduced him to more than a dozen gentleman, all of whom were enthusiastic rebels and firm in their belief that if the South did not have a "walk over" she would have the next thing to it, for there was no fight to speak of in the Northern people. They told Rodney that while they gloried in his pluck, they were afraid he had undertaken more than he could accomplish.

It may seem strange to some of our readers that these enemies of the government should have the audacity to show their faces among loyal men, and that the authorities should permit them to go and come whenever they felt like it, but stranger things than this were being done in the East, and right under the noses of the President and his cabinet. Rebel agents in Washington kept their friends in the South posted in all that was said and done at the capital, and Commander (afterward Admiral) Semmes had made a business trip through the Northern States, purchasing large quantities of percussion caps which "were sent by express without any disguise to Montgomery," making contracts for artillery, powder and other munitions of war, as well as for a complete set of machinery for rifling cannon, and had searched the harbor of New York in the hope of finding a steamer or two that might be armed and used for coast defense. None of these people were molested, and that was one thing that led the Southerners to believe that the North would not fight.

Cairo was reached in due time, but there was little in or around the place to indicate that there was a war at hand except the outlines of a small fort which was being thrown up to command the river and Bird's Point on the Missouri shore. There were a few soldiers strolling about on the levee, and at that time the garrison numbered six hundred and fifty men. A few months later there was a much larger force in Cairo, and among the blue coats there was one who was often seen walking along the levee with his hands behind him and his eyes fastened thoughtfully upon the ground. He generally wore an old linen duster, a black slouch hat, and a pair of light blue pants thrust into the tops of heavy boots which were seldom blacked, but often splashed with Cairo mud. But everybody stepped respectfully aside to let him pass, and the spruce young staff officers never failed to salute. It was General Grant.

Once more the Mollie Able swung out into the stream, and at the end of half an hour rounded the point below the fort and resumed her journey up the Mississippi. Now Rodney Gray began to show signs of excitement. Every turn of the paddle wheels brought him nearer to the place where he must leave the boat, and the new-made friends who had done so much to cheer him up since they found out who and what he was, and set out alone on a journey of nearly two hundred and fifty miles.

"Being a born Southerner you are accustomed to the saddle, and the ride itself would be nothing but a pleasure trip; but there are the people you are likely to meet on the way," said Captain Howard, seating himself by Rodney's side as the Mollie Able rounded the point. "Are you armed?"

The boy replied that he had a revolver.

"You may need it," continued the captain. "You see the pro-slavery men and abolitionists are scattered all over the State, and I don't believe you can find a town or village in it that is not divided into two hostile camps. That's where I am afraid you are going to have trouble, and you must be all things to all men until you find out who you are talking to. Now here are two letters of introduction that one of my friends gave me for you this morning, and they are addressed to parties living near Springfield, one of whom is a Union man and the other a Confederate. You must use them – "

"Must I ask favors of a Union man and then turn about and fight him?" exclaimed Rodney.

The captain shrugged his shoulders.

"You want to get through, don't you?" said he. "All's fair in war times, and if I were in your place, and a reference to this Springfield Union man would take me in safety through a community of Yankee sympathizers, I should not hesitate to use his name. If you fall in with some of our own people and they suspect your loyalty, why then you can use the name of the Confederate. It's all right."

The captain was called away at that moment, and Rodney, glancing at the envelopes he held in his hand, was somewhat startled to find that one of them was addressed to Erastus Percival.

"I wonder if that can be Tom Percival's father," said he. "If I thought it was, I wouldn't present this letter to him for all the money there is in Missouri. He would turn me over to the Yankees at once."

We have had occasion to speak of Tom Percival just once, and that was during the sham fight which was started in the lower hall of the Barrington Academy to give Dick Graham a chance to steal the Union flag from the colonel's room. We then referred to the fact that Tom's father had cast his vote against secession with one hand while holding a cocked revolver in the other. Rodney, of course, was not sure that this letter of introduction was addressed to this particular Percival, but still he had no desire to make the gentleman's acquaintance if he could help it. While he was turning the matter over in his mind, the captain of theMollie Able stepped out of the clerk's office and tapped him on the shoulder.

"The very best thing I can do for you," said he, "is to set you ashore at Cedar Bluff landing."

Rodney was surprised, but it was clear to him that the captain knew who he was and where he wanted to go.

"There are only a few people who live there, and they are principally wood-cutters," continued the skipper. "But they are true as steel, and you can trust them with your life. I have bought wood of them for years and know them like a book. I will go ashore with you and give you a good send-off. We shall get there about ten o'clock to-night."

Rodney opened his lips to thank the captain for his kindness, but he was gone. The old steamboat-man sympathized with the South, and Captain Howard and his friends had found it out, and induced him to do what he could to help Rodney escape the expectant Yankee cotton-factor at St. Louis. The boy laughed aloud when he thought how astonished and angry Tom Randolph would be to learn that he had wasted time and telegrams to no purpose. He passed the rest of the day in company with Captain Howard and his friends, nearly all of whom held some position of trust under the new government, and at nine o'clock, in obedience to a significant wink and nod from the skipper, he went below and put the saddle and bridle on his horse. Just then the whistle sounded for Cedar Bluff landing, and some of the passengers came down to bid him good-by and see him safely ashore.

"A boy with your ability and pluck ought to make his mark in the service, and I wish I could keep track of you," said Captain Howard, giving Rodney's hand a cordial shake. "But I shall most likely be ordered East, hundreds of miles away from here, and possibly I may never hear of you again; but I shall often think of you. Good-by, and good luck."

This was the way in which all his new friends took leave of him, and if good wishes were all that were needed to bring him safely through, Rodney would have had no fears of the future. When the Mollie Able'sbow touched the bank and a line had been thrown out, a gang-plank was shoved ashore, and the skipper came down from the hurricane deck to give his passenger a "send-off." The blazing torch, which one of the deck-hands had placed in the steamer's bow, threw a flickering light upon half a dozen long-haired, roughly dressed men who had been brought to the bank by the sound of the whistle, and who gazed in surprise when they saw a stout negro coming off with Rodney's trunk on his shoulder, followed by Rodney himself, who was leading the roan colt. It wasn't often that a passenger was landed in that out-of-the-way place.

"Set the trunk down anywhere, Sam, and go aboard. A word with you, Jeff," said the Mollie Able's captain, beckoning to the tallest and roughest looking man in the party. "Where's Price?"

"Dunno. Jeff Thompson has just been round behind the Cape pulling up the railroad, but some of the Yankee critter-fellers went out there and run him off," replied the long-haired Missourian. "Last I heared of Price he was down about the Arkansas line."

(The "Cape" referred to was the town of Cape Girardeau, and the "critter-fellers" were the Union cavalry which at that time garrisoned the place. The "Arkansas line" was the southwestern part of Missouri where Price raised his army, which grew in numbers the nearer he marched with it to the Missouri River).

"That's bad news for my young friend here," said the captain of theMollie Able. "Springfield is off in that direction, and that's right where he wants to go. He is one of Price's men, and is anxious to find his commander. Say, Jeff, you take care of him and see him safely on his way, and I'll make it all right with you when I stop for my next load of wood."

"It's all right now, cap'n," answered Jeff. "He'll be safe as long as he stays here, seeing that he's a friend of your'n, but when he gets back in the country – I dunno; I dunno."

The steamboat captain didn't know either, but he couldn't stop to talk about it. He had done the best he could to keep Rodney out of the clutches of that Yankee cotton-factor in St. Louis, and now the boy must look out for himself. He gave the latter's hand a hasty shake, told him to keep a stiff upper lip and give a good account of himself when he met the Lincoln invaders in battle, and shouted to the deck-hands to "let go and haul in." The steamer gave him a parting salute from her whistle as she backed out into the river, Captain Howard and his friends on the boiler deck waved their hands to him, and Rodney was left alone with the wood-choppers. A Northern boy would not have been at all pleased with the situation, for they were a rough looking set, and probably there was not one among them who did not plume himself upon his skill as a fighter; but Rodney was not afraid of them, for he had seen such men before.

"One of you fellers put that hoss under kiver, and stranger, you come with me," said Jeff, raising Rodney's trunk from the ground and placing it upon his shoulder. "It's little we've got to offer you, and you look as though you might be used to good living; but you're welcome to such as we've got, and we're glad to see you. Now we'd like to have you tell us, if you can, what all this here furse is about," he went on, when he had conducted his guest into a log cabin that stood at the top of the bank, and deposited the trunk beside the open fire-place. "What made them abolitionists come down here all of a sudden to take our niggers away from us?"

"Because they are envious – jealous of our prosperity," replied Rodney, drawing up a nail keg and seating himself upon it. "They have to work every day and we don't; and that's what's the matter with them. They don't care a cent for the negroes. They used to own slaves themselves."

All the wood-choppers, with the exception of the one who had taken it upon himself to "put the hoss under kiver," had followed Jeff and Rodney into the cabin, and they were profoundly astonished by the last words that fell from the boy's lips. It was a matter of history that was quite new to them.

"Where be them slaves now?" asked Jeff.

"They were given their freedom."

"Well, I always knowed them Yankees was fules, but I don't for the life of me see what they done that fur."

"Oh, it wasn't because they were sorry for the negro," exclaimed Rodney. "It was because they couldn't use him. They would have slaves to-day if they could make a dollar by it. You let the Yanks alone for that. Why, when these troubles began, we didn't have percussion caps enough to fight a battle with, and Captain Semmes went up North and bought a big supply; and the men of whom he bought them knew what he was going to do with them, and offered to make contracts with him to send him all he wanted and could pay for."

"What's the reason they couldn't use the niggers up there?" asked one of the woodchoppers.

"Because their land is mostly mountains and rocks, and they can't work it on as a big a scale as we do," replied Rodney, trying to use language that his ignorant auditors could readily understand. "They gain their living by catching codfish and herring, and by making things, such as shoes for the niggers, and cloth and axes and machinery and – Oh, everything. And the blacks couldn't do that sort of work so that their owners could make anything out of them, and that's the reason they let them go free."

"And because they can't use the niggers do they say that we-uns musn't use 'em nuther?" demanded Jeff, angrily.

"That's it exactly," said Rodney. "They are dogs in the manger. They can't eat the hay themselves and they won't let the critters eat it."

Although the wood-choppers didn't quite understand this, it was plain enough to the Barrington boy that they were impressed by his words.

"And what are we-uns going to do about it?" inquired Jeff, after a little pause.

"We're going to dissolve partnership with them – break up the firm and go into business for ourselves," replied Rodney, throwing so much enthusiasm into his words that he succeeded in creating some excitement among the wood-choppers. One, in particular, was so deeply interested that he pulled his nail keg close in front of the speaker; but whether he was listening to his words, or making a mental calculation of the value of his gold watch chain, Rodney did not think to inquire.

"And do they say that we-uns mustn't do it?" Jeff demanded.

"You've hit it again," was Rodney's reply. "That is just what they do say; and they say, further, that they won't give us our share of the goods. See how they hung on to that fort in Charleston Harbor until our gallant fellows made them give it up? That fort belonged to South Carolina; but when she broke up the firm, by which I mean the Union, the Yanks wouldn't give it up. Who ever heard of such impudence?"

"I never," answered Jeff. "We did lick 'em sure enough, didn't we?"

"Of course we did, and that isn't the worst of it. We're going to whip them as often as we get a chance at them. But what am I talking about. The Yankees won't fight."

"Didn't they have a sorter rucus up in St. Louis?"

"Those were not Yankees. They were Dutchmen – old country soldiers, who don't know enough about war to keep them from shooting into their own men. Who's afraid of such soldiers?"

"We're mighty glad you stopped off here, stranger," said Jeff, at length. "We didn't rightly know what all the furse was about, and there wasn't nobody who could tell us, because the steamboat cap'ns who come here for wood couldn't wait to talk about it. But we know now, and I do think that some on us had oughter have a hand in making them Yankees stay where they b'long. I'd go in a minute if it wasn't fur the ole woman and the young ones."

"I aint got none of them things to hold me back, and I'll go in your place, Jeff," said one of the wood-cutters. It was the man who had drawn his seat close in front of Rodney, and seemed to be so much interested in the boy's watch chain.

"Will you go with me and join Price?" asked the latter, eagerly.

"I reckon I might as well," replied the man.

"Do you know the country?"

"Well, no; I can't say that I do. But I know where to look to find the road that runs from Jackson to Hartsville, forty miles this side of Springfield, and when you get there, mebbe you'll know where you are."

"No, I won't," answered Rodney. "I have never been in this part of Missouri before. I have been in St. Louis two or three times, but when I got out of sight of the Planters' House I was lost completely."

"Why, didn't the cap'n of the Mollie Able tell Jeff that you was one of Price's men? How could you have jined him if you haven't been where he was?"

Rodney did not at all like the tone in which this question was asked, and it was right on the end of his tongue to tell the wood-cutter that it was none of his business; but on second thought he decided that that wouldn't do. The man talked and acted as if he suspected him of something; and if the others suspected him too, they might make trouble for him. The steamboat captain did say that he was one of Price's men, and Rodney wished now that he hadn't done it.

"I suppose I could arrange all that by letter or telegraph, couldn't I?" was the answer he made, as he produced his note book and took from it the dispatch he had received from Dick Graham's father, and one of the letters of introduction that had been given to him by Captain Howard. These he passed over to the suspicious wood-cutter, rightly believing that the latter could not read a word of them. "You will see that that telegram reads, 'Price will accept,'" continued Rodney. "I belong to a company of Rangers that was raised down the river, and at my captain's request I telegraphed to Price inquiring if he would take us and let us operate on our own hook, and he said he would. Read it for yourself. What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing much."

"You see," explained Jeff, who during this conversation had sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fastened upon the floor, "things is getting sorter ticklish down here in this neck of the woods already. Nobody don't know who he can trust."

"Don't you believe what the Able's captain said about me?" inquired Rodney, who had little dreamed that he would become an object of suspicion almost as soon as he set his foot on Missouri soil. "He told me you were true blue."

"And so we are, when we know the feller we're talking to." said the man who was sitting in front of him, and whom he afterward heard addressed as Nels. "Now I want you to answer me a few questions: where did you board the Mollie Able?"

Rodney, who was not at all used to this sort of thing, began to grow red in the face, but fortunately he did not hesitate an instant.

"I got on at Baton Rouge," he said.

"Is that place this side of Cairo?"

"No; it is the other side."

"Did you stop at Cairo on your way up?"

"The Able was there perhaps half an hour."

"Then I can see through some of it as plain as daylight," exclaimed Nels, straightening up on his nail keg and shaking his hand at Jeff. "He was at Cairo long enough to change his clothes, swap hosses and have his whiskers shaved off; but why he should have the cap'n of the Able set him ashore here at this landing, beats my time. Don't it your'n?" There were signs of excitement in the cabin, and Rodney felt the cold chills creeping over him. The wood-cutters were wofully ignorant, quite as open to reason as so many wooden men would have been, and if they suspected him of trying to play some trick upon them, Rodney could not imagine how he should go to work to set them right. He glanced at their scowling faces and told himself that he would not have been in greater danger if he had been a prisoner in the hands of the Yankees.

"I should like to know what you mean by this foolishness?" exclaimed Rodney, growing excited in his turn.

"Mebbe you'll find that there aint no great foolishness about it before we've got through with you," answered Nels; and Rodney noticed that one of the wood-cutters moved his seat so as to get between him and the door.

"I shall know more about that after you have told me who and what you take me for," continued Rodney. "Do you think you ever saw me before?"

"Well, as to your face and clothes we might be mistook," replied Nels, slowly. "But you had oughter hid that watch chain before you come back amongst we-uns."

He reached out to lay hold of the article in question, but the angry boy pushed his hand away.

"This watch and chain were a birthday present from my mother four years ago," said he, taking the watch from his pocket and unhooking the chain, "and the fact is recorded on the inside of the case, if you have sense enough to read it, which I begin to doubt. You are at liberty to look at them, but you mustn't try to get out of the door with them."

Nels took the articles in question and looked fixedly at Rodney, as if he did not know whether to smile at him or get angry. He decided on the former course when one of his companions said, in an audible whisper:

"You sartingly be mistook, Nels. That abolition hoss-thief was a mighty palavering sort of chap, but he didn't have no such grit."

"Is that what you take me for," exclaimed Rodney, – "a horse-thief and an abolitionist besides? You certainly are mistaken, for I haven't got that low down in the world yet. Jeff, you are the only man in the party who seems to have a level head on his shoulders, and I wish you would explain this thing to me. Begin at the beginning so that I may know just how the case stands."

Before Jeff could reply to the request one of the small army of hunting dogs which found shelter in the wood-cutters' camp set up a yelp, the rest of the pack joined in, and for a minute or two there was a terrific hubbub. When it lulled a little the hail rang out sharp and clear from some place in the surrounding woods:

"Hallo the house! Don't let your dogs bite!"

The words brought all the wood-choppers to their feet and sent all except two of them – Nels and the man who had taken his seat near the door – out into the darkness. These remained behind in obedience to a sign from Jeff, and Rodney knew that they meant to keep an eye on him.

"Who's out there?" he inquired.

"Don't you recognize his voice?" asked Nels in reply. "There's more'n one of 'em, and they are the men who have been hunting for you for a week past."

"I am glad to hear it," said Rodney. "Perhaps they will be able to clear away some of the ridiculous suspicions you seem to have got into your heads concerning me."

"Get out, ye whelps," shouted Jeff, when he stepped out of the door; whereupon the dogs ceased their clamor and slunk away behind the cabin to escape the clubs he threw among them to enforce obedience to his order. "Come on, strangers. They won't pester you."

Then came a tramping of hoofs, as if a small body of cavalry was making its way through the bushes, and a minute afterward Rodney could look through the open door and see half a dozen men dismounting from their horses. He saw Jeff exchange a few hasty words with the tall, black-whiskered man who was the first to touch the ground, and heard the exclamations of surprise which the latter uttered as he listened to them. He could not understand what the man said, but the woodcutter near the door did, for he called out:

"He's come back sure's you live, and Nels has got his watch to prove it.

He knowed him the minute he seed the chain that's fast to it."

"Well, if that is the case, whom have we got here?" said the black-whiskered man; and this time Rodney heard the words very plainly. "Where is he? Let me have a look at him."

Jeff waved his hand toward the door and the man stepped in and faced Rodney, who arose to his feet and met his gaze without flinching. One glance brought from him a sigh of relief. He had an intelligent man to talk to now – one who could be reasoned with.

"There's the watch that has brought suspicion upon me in a way I cannot understand," said Rodney, nodding toward Nels, who promptly handed it over. "Will you be kind enough to open it and read the inscription you will find on the inside of the case."

The man took the watch, and while he was opening it kept his eyes fastened upon Rodney's face. He seemed both amused and angry.

"Jeff," he exclaimed at length. "I never knew before that you were such a blockhead. There is about as much resemblance between this young gentleman and that horse-thief outside as there is between you and me."

"But Mr. Westall, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.

"But, Mr. West-all, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.

"Well, look at the chain. You're a Jackson man, I suppose?" he added, nodding at Rodney.

"Every day in the week," replied the boy. "And that's what brought me up here from Louisiana. I belong to a company of partisans; but our Governor wouldn't take us the way we wanted to go, and here I am. I want to find Price as soon as I can. Run your eye over that telegram, if you please, and then read this letter."

While the man, who had been addressed as Mr. Westall, was reading the documents Rodney passed over to him, his four companions came into the cabin bringing with them a fifth, at the sight of whom Rodney Gray started as if he had been shot.