Of course the principal topic of conversation at the enrolling office during the rest of the day was Mr. Gray's unexpected interference in behalf of Ned Griffin, the conscript. It frightened Captain Roach, enraged and disgusted Tom Randolph, and put Lieutenant Lambert into a very anxious frame of mind. The latter was obliged to confess that his chances for keeping out of the army were very slim indeed.

"That's the way the thing stands, and if you want to stay at home you and your men had better be doing something," he kept saying to himself as he galloped along the dusty road on his way home. It was easy enough for Captain Roach to talk, but what was there that the Home Guards could do to distinguish themselves, seeing that the Federal troops were so secure in their position at New Orleans that the whole Confederate Army could not drive them out, and that the gunboats in the river in front of Baton Rouge could not be whipped by men who were armed only with squirrel rifles and shot guns? Lambert had been turning the matter over in his mind ever since Mr. Gray left the enrolling office in the morning, and now he did something which he had declared he never would do as long as he lived. He went out of his way to ask the advice of a Confederate veteran who had just returned from the Army of the Centre disabled by wounds received in battle.

There were several of these crippled veterans in the neighborhood, and they had been so many thorns in Tom Randolph's side ever since they first began straggling home from the front. To begin with, they turned up their noses at the Home Guards, and made all manner of sport of their finely uniformed captain when they saw him riding along the road slyly pricking his horse with his spurs to make the animal prance and go sideways, as an officer's horse ought to do. They laughed, too, when they heard the Home Guards tell of their fight with that gunboat, and some of them went so far as to declare that, disabled as they were and half dead with camp fever besides, they could arm themselves with corn-stalks and drive Tom Randolph and his warriors into the Mississippi River.

In the next place, almost all these veterans had brought home with them a goodly supply of Yankee relics and trophies in the shape of uniform coats, pants, caps, and overcoats that had been picked up on the field, and which, for some reason or other, they seemed anxious to get off their hands. So they offered them to the Home Guards in exchange for citizens' clothing of equal or less value, and the latter were always found willing to trade. Captain Tom was disgusted and angry when first one man and then another appeared at the enrolling office clad in some portion of a shabby uniform that had once belonged to a Federal trooper or infantry-man, and ordered the wearers to clear out and never come there again unless they could come properly dressed; but the Home Guards paid no sort of attention to him. They were soldiers, they said, and since their own government did not think enough of them to provide them with uniforms they felt at liberty to obtain them where they could. Besides, their new clothes, even though they were well worn and had once belonged to Lincoln's hirelings, were warm and comfortable, and the blue overcoats would keep out next winter's cold as effectually as gray ones. Much against his will Tom finally appealed to the enrolling officer; but the latter could not help him, for he had no authority over the Home Guards.

"But you might threaten to conscript them if they don't obey my orders," suggested Tom.

"I shouldn't like to do it for a little thing like that," replied Captain Roach. "They've got the uniforms, and I don't see how you are going to keep them from wearing them. What difference does it make, anyway? You don't have to go on dress parade."

"No matter for that," replied Tom. "I didn't enter the service to command a lot of Yankees, and I won't do it. Suppose a general officer should happen along and order them out for drill and inspection! I'd feel so ashamed of myself that I know I should take to my heels."

"Make your mind easy on that score," was the captain's answer. "If you don't take to your heels until that happens you will never run. Judging from what I have learned since I have been here, the government cares no more for companies of this kind than it does for so many wild hogs in the woods. If it were not for you and your mother I would conscript the last one of them."

"But what do you suppose makes the returned veterans so anxious to get rid of these Yankee uniforms and things?" continued Tom. "It looks to me as though there might be something back of it."

"That's the way it looks to me, too," replied Captain Roach. "They don't want to have a Yankee scouting party ride up on them suddenly and say: 'Look here, Johnny; have you been robbing some wounded or captive Yank? If not, where did you get those blue clothes?'"

"But the Yankees are not here," cried Tom.

"I know they are not here now, but they're coming; and if they keep on besting us at every point, as they are doing at this minute, they will be here before long, too. You needn't think that Farragut is going to remain idle down the river, or that Flag-Officer Davis is going to keep on doing nothing up the river while we are fortifying Vicksburg. There's going to be fun here one of these days."

And sure enough there was. It came much sooner than Captain Roach had any reason to think it would, and Lieutenant Lambert of the Home Guards, whom we saw on his way to ask advice of a Confederate veteran, was the man who did the most to help it along. He found the soldier of whom he was in search at his home. He was sitting on the gallery enjoying his after supper smoke; but when he saw the Home Guard alight at his gate he staggered to his feet, laid hold of the crutch that leaned against the house behind his chair, and said, in mock alarm:

"The man you want to see don't live here no more. He done moved outen the country two year ago come next July. Clear yourself. I'm that skeared of gray-back soldiers that I can't sleep none fur a week after seein' one of 'em."

"Aw! Quit your nonsense," growled Lambert, "or, by gum! I'll come there and lick ye even if you aint got but one leg to defend yourself with." He hitched his horse at the fence, shook hands with the veteran, then seated himself on the porch close by his chair and continued: "Me and you have always been the best kind of friends, Abner, and I don't want you to sniff at me just kase you've been shot by the Yankees and I aint."

"I won't, Sile; I won't never do the like no more. But a Home Guard! And lickin' a gunboat that's got 'leven inches of iron on her sides and four foot of solid oak back of that, with nothing in the wide world but popguns!" said the veteran, taking his pipe from his mouth to indulge in a hearty peal of laughter. "And Tom Randolph fur a cap'n. That there is a leetle the worst I ever heard of. Hey-youp! Steady on the left centre!" he yelled, dropping his crutch upon the gallery and grasping with both hands the stump of his leg, which he had wrenched a little too severely during his paroxysms of merriment. "I almost disremembered that I aint got only part of a leg on this side. I left the rest up to Shiloh. I'm glad to see you again, Sile; I am so. But I would be a heap gladder if me and you had chawed hard-tack and fit the Yanks together. Then you wouldn't be no such triflin' thing as a Home Guard."

"But I don't want to fight no Yanks," said Lambert truthfully.

"Don't you want to fight no Yanks? Well, I don't know's I'm blamin' you fur that. They aint by no means the easy fellers to lick that we uns thought they was goin' to be, and when they set up that yell of theirn to let we uns know they was comin' fur us—I tell you, Sile, my hair always riz when I heard that yell, and I wisht I was to home grabblin' fur taters."

"Then what makes you poke fun at me fur?" demanded Lambert. "I am to home now and I want to stay; but Cap'n Roach he allows that if we uns don't do something pretty sudden we're liable to be conscripted."

"Like enough. Then why don't you uns do something?"

"That's what I come here to see you about. What is they, I'd like to know, that we can do? If the Yanks would only come where we be [you will notice that Lambert did not say "Yankees" any more. He copied the veteran and used the shorter word], we uns could show the folks about here that we Home Guards aint by no means the useless truck they take us to be; but we can't go all the way to New Orleans fur the sake of fightin' 'em."

"You uns will see Yanks enough if you stay right where you be," said the veteran, with another laugh. "I aint spilin' fur a sight at any more of 'em, but all the same I look to see them ridin' right along this road while I am settin' on my gallery watchin' of 'em. They aint come this clost to Mooreville to go away without seein' it. They're hoppin' us right along, and we had oughter be whopped."

"Now, just listen at you!" said Lambert reproachfully.

"I'm only tellin' you what I know," said the veteran in earnest tones. "Look at the way they're doin'! When the law was passed that everybody must be conscripted, why didn't they go to work and conscript everybody? Why didn't they put the old soldiers ahead and shove the Johnny Raws into the ranks? Steader that they let the old soldiers stay in the ranks, and put over them fur officers a lot of new chaps who couldn't a'told a Yank from a ground-hog if they had seed the two standin' in one place. We uns aint a goin' to whop nobody with a lot of greenhorns to command us, and although I aint by no means glad to go hobblin' through the world on one leg, I am mighty glad of an excuse to get outen the army. Now, there's that there Rodney Gray."

"By gum! I wish he was here to be conscripted," exclaimed Lambert.

The veteran took his pipe from his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and looked at his companion with an expression on his face which seemed to say that he did not know whether to laugh or get angry. But finally he concluded to laugh, and he did so most uproariously, rolling about on his chair as if he were in danger of falling out of it, but all the while taking good care not to give his wounded leg another wrench.

"Why, man, he's a soldier, Rodney is," he said as soon as he could speak, "and a mighty good one, too. He's been in more battles than me, and that's useless. He fit all through Missoury with Daddy Price, and then they brung him over to the Army of the Centre, and that's where I seen him. They wanted to make a big officer of him, but Rodney he wouldn't have it so, kase he's plum sick of the war, same as I be, and allows to come home soon's his extry three months is out. You can't tech Rodney Gray."

"I know that well enough, but I wish we could. You see, Tom Randolph——"

"You needn't say no more," laughed the veteran. "Rodney got an office in Cap'n Hubbard's Rangers and Tom didn't, and Tom is mad about it and wants to spite Rodney in some way. But he can't do it, and if he tries it ole man Gray will make him wish he hadn't."

"And ole man Gray is another chap I'd like mighty well to see sent to the front," exclaimed Lambert angrily; "but we can't touch him neither. He showed his hand when he come into the office this morning and told Roach that he'd have to let that Griffin boy go free, kase he allowed to buy him off with bacon and beef; and Roach was that skeared that he dassent open his mouth."

"What was he skeared of?"

"That ole man Gray would report him fur leavin' the names of Tom Randolph's friends off'n the conscript list, when he had oughter put them on like he found them in the poll-books."

"Like enough," replied Abner. "And then you and Tom Randolph and all the rest of the Home Guards would have stood as fine a chance of goin' to the front as Ned Griffin. It would serve you just right fur trainin' under such a no account cap'n as you have got. Why don't you cut loose from him and do something on your own hook? That would be me if I was you."

"'Taint safe," replied Lambert, who had not yet forgotten that he brought himself into trouble the last time he tried to do something on his own hook. "Somehow our folks have got to be mighty tender of the Union men about here and don't like to have them pestered."

"You let your Union neighbors alone and pester them that's got we'pons into their hands," said the veteran indignantly. "You uns aint got no call to fight them that can't fight back; but there's them gunboats down to the river."

"Well, what of 'em?" demanded Lambert, trembling at the bare thought of again venturing within gunshot of one of those black monsters. "They've got cannons on 'em, and they shoot balls bigger'n your head. Don't I know? Aint I been in a fight with one of 'em?"

"Shucks!" sneered Abner. "You stand about as much chance of bein' hit by one of them big balls as you do of bein' struck by lightnin'. I have seed me on the skirmish line lyin' fur hours behind a stump that wasn't no bigger'n a plug hat, while shell and solid shot was tearin' up the ground all around me. They don't do damage once a week less'n they're drapped into a line of battle or into a fort that is packed full of men."

"But how can we lick 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak?" protested Lambert.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the veteran. "I aint talkin' about lickin' on 'em. I'm talkin' about pesterin' of 'em—drivin' their row-boats back when they start to come to the shore, and pickin' off the officers as fast as they come outen their holes in the cabin. You uns could lay behind the levee and do that, and be as safe as you be to home; kase the shells they would send at you would all fly over your heads, and when they bu'st they would be a mile to your rear."

The lieutenant of the Home Guards was overjoyed to hear these encouraging words fall from the lips of a man who had faced the Yankees in battle and knew what he was talking about. He had given his friend Abner to understand that he was one of the few who followed Captain Tom when the latter rode out with a handful of brave men to see if the Union Army was advancing upon Mooreville from Baton Rouge, but there was not a word of truth in his story. He was one of the majority who excused themselves and stayed behind, and all he knew about that desperate fight with the gunboat and the concealed battery that opened on the rear of the Home Guards was what his comrades told him. The veteran did not seem to think that the big guns on the war vessels were so very dangerous, and Lambert began to pluck up courage.

"'Pears to me that Cap'n Roach said something like that the first time I talked with him," said the latter.

"Like enough; and if he did you can bet that that is what he would do if he had as many Home Guards under his command as you have got. I can't fur the life of me see what makes them Baton Rouge folks so very friendly with the Yanks, anyhow. They take 'em into their houses and visit with 'em, and feed 'em, dog-gone it all, and I say such doings aint right. If ole Daddy Bragg was here fur about five minutes he'd put a stop to all that friendship business, I bet you, and like as not he'd have some of you Home Guards shot fur lettin' it go on as long as it has. Anyway, he'd kick Tom Randolph into the ranks and put a soldier in his place. That's the way they do things up in the Army of the Centre."

The result of this interview was that when Lieutenant Lambert took leave of the veteran and rode home to a late supper he was fully satisfied in his own mind that Tom Randolph was totally unfit for the responsible position he held, that the Home Guards, who under proper leadership might have made themselves known throughout the length and breadth of the Confederacy, had been kept in check too long already, and that he (Lambert), being second in command of the company, had a perfect right to take matters into his own hands without saying a word to anybody about it. But it was a somewhat delicate task, he told himself. Although Lambert looked upon the friendly relations existing between the crews of the Union war vessels and the Baton Rouge people as a burning disgrace, he did not relish the idea of trying to bring them to an end, for the citizens might not like it, and, worse than that, they might make him trouble on account of it; but something must be done or he would be compelled to go into the army, seeing that he had no rich and influential friend like Mr. Gray to purchase his release with bacon and beef. So Lambert's mind was made up, and before he reached home his campaign was fully planned.

"I'll raise a big squad and start for the city to-morrow night," he soliloquized, flourishing his riding-switch in the air to give emphasis to his thoughts. "And if I once gain a footing behind the levee I'll put a stop to that friendship business, I bet you. I'll give the folks to understand that we uns don't like the way they're giving aid and comfort to the enemies of their country, and make them Yankee gun-boatmen stay on board their ships where they belong. I'll take pains, too, to see that the Gov'nor hears of it, and perhaps he'll say that I had ought to be cap'n of the Home Guards in place of Tom Randolph."

That was an encouraging thought, and the longer Lambert dwelt upon it the more excited he became. He did not sleep much that night, and after an early breakfast mounted his horse and rode through the country to muster his men; but as fast as he found them and unfolded to them the details of his campaign he was met by the same excuses and refusals that Tom Randolph had vainly tried to combat. The fighting member of the company, the one who was always eager to shoot or hang the defenceless Union men he assisted in robbing, was feeling so very poorly on this particular morning that he was thinking strongly of riding over to a neighbor's to see if he could not borrow a dose or two of quinine; the second had promised to go to a log rolling; the third had a lame horse and didn't rightly know where he could go to get another; and not more than three or four out of the fifty men whom Lambert summoned to follow him to Baton Rouge had the courage and honesty to tell him that they did not like to do it.

"I wouldn't mind hiding behind the levee and shooting a few Yankees," said Lieutenant Moseley, "but they'll shoot back, and like as not that'll make the Baton Rouge folks mad at us. Ask somebody else. You can get all the men you want and I don't reckon I'll go."

Whenever a Home Guard talked to him in this way Lambert always said in reply:

"Well, then, if you don't want to go and win a name fur yourself you can stay to home till Roach gets ready to conscript you. If you were in Kimberly's store yesterday you must have seen fur a fact that we uns aint safe from going into the army just kase we happen to belong to the Home Guards. Cap'n Roach he has said time and again that we was liable to go if we didn't wake up and do something, and that if he had been our commander he wouldn't have let them city people get on such amazing good terms with the Yanks. Le's go down there and make 'em quit it right now, and say nothing to nobody till the thing is done. Remember, I don't ask every man, but only just them that we want to have stay in the company. When we get back I'll give Cap'n Roach a list of them that went with me, and if he wants to conscript the others—them that was afraid to face the enemies of their country—and send them to the camp of instruction, he can do it and welcome. Now, what do you say?"

It was by the use of such arguments as these that Lieutenant Lambert succeeded in inducing some of his particular friends to believe that it might be policy for them to join his expedition, and that night they secretly gathered at a designated place outside the town and started for Baton Rouge. When they arrived within sight of the church spires at daylight they did not attract attention to themselves by entering the city in a body, for Lambert was afraid that some Union man or converted rebel might suspect the object of their visit and interfere with their designs by signalling to the fleet. They separated and went in by different roads and in small parties, and came together again in the neighborhood of the landing at which the boats from the fleet always touched the shore, taking care to leave their horses behind some warehouses out of sight.

"Now be careful, everybody," commanded Lambert, placing a fresh cap on his rifle and waving his hand toward the levee as a signal to his men to advance and conceal themselves behind it. "We can't do 'em no damage from here—it's too fur; so we must wait till some of their row-boats come off."

The Home Guards bent themselves almost double and stole across the clear space that intervened between the warehouses and the levee; and so cautious were they in their movements that the quartermasters on watch on the decks of the different gunboats, who were constantly sweeping the banks on both sides of the river with their long-distance spyglasses, saw no signs of them, and so silent that when they crept to the top of the levee on their hands and knees and looked over it, the negroes gathered at the landing below did not know that there was anyone near them. There were probably a dozen men, women, and children in the group, and they were lying at their ease on the ground or walking slowly back and forth; but all of them turned their gaze toward the gunboats now and then, as if they were waiting for somebody to come ashore. There were several covered baskets and pails near by, and the sight of them was enough to enrage Lieutenant Lambert, who whispered to the man who lay next him behind the levee:

"Pass the word along the line fur everybody to keep under kiver. We've ketched them niggers red-handed in the very act, fur there's grub in them buckets and things; now you just watch and see if there aint." Then he raised his voice a little and said to the nearest darkey: "What you folks doing there? Who you looking fur?"

"Waiting for Mr. Wilcox, sah," was the negro's prompt answer. He looked up and saw two or three heads above the top of the levee, but thought nothing of it. There were a good many whites in Baton Rouge who did not dare show themselves as freely to the Yankee sailors as the people of his own color did.

"Who's Mr. Wilcox?" demanded Lambert.

"He's de cater ob de steerage mess, sah; de man what buys de breakfus' fur some of de officers on dat fust boat," was the reply; and although Lambert did not understand the words any better than the negro did himself, he gathered from them the idea that somebody on the gunboat would come ashore for his breakfast very shortly, and that he and his warriors had reached the levee just in the nick of time.

This cheering intelligence was passed along the line in a whisper, and the Home Guards pulled off their hats and were settling themselves into comfortable positions behind the levee to await the coming of the caterer's boat, when they were startled by hearing someone close beside them say, in frightened and protesting tones:

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, what are you going to do?"

Lambert faced quickly around and saw a couple of citizens standing at the base of the levee where they could observe all that was being done by the Home Guards; but whether they had come upon his ambush by accident or design the lieutenant did not know or care to ask. He saw the necessity for prompt action.

"Scrooch down right where you stand, so that the Yanks can't see you," he commanded.

"But what are you gentlemen going to do?" inquired one of the citizens, both of whom obeyed Lambert's order and sank upon their heels with alacrity when they saw the black muzzles of three or four double-barrels swinging in their direction.

"Well, if you can't see fur yourselves what we uns are going to do I reckon I'll have to tell you," replied the lieutenant of the Home Guards, turning part way around so that he could watch both negroes and citizens at the same time, and see that no signals passed from them to the fleet. "We're goin' to break up the visitin' and tradin' that's been going on between this town and the Yanks till we are teetotally sick and tired of it. The folks back in the country, who are all good Confederits, don't like it; and me and my men have come in here to say so in a way that both you and the Yanks will understand."

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the man, who seemed to be almost overcome with astonishment and alarm. "You are not going to fire into those war vessels?"

"What's the reason I aint?" said Lambert coolly. "You just wait till one of their row-boats starts to come ashore and I'll show you."

"But consider for a moment——" began the citizen, his excitement bringing him to his feet.

"Down you go again," interrupted Lambert, drawing his cocked rifle to his shoulder. "We uns have considered the whole business. We know that we can't hurt 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak back of that with we'pons like these we've got, but we can make them blue-jackets mighty jubersome about comin' ashore and being so very friendly with you Baton Rouge folks; and that's what we allow to do."

"In the name of God and humanity I protest against such an outrage!" said one of the men, whose pale face and firmly set lips showed that he would not have stopped with a mere protest if he had possessed the power to do anything else.

"You must not think of it, you madman!" cried the other. "Don't you know that the boats will return your fire, and that they can knock our town to pieces with a single broadside? There is no telling how many innocent women and children will be killed or maimed through your act of folly."

"Well, then, why didn't you think of all them things before you made friends with the enemies of your country?" answered Lambert. "But the gunboats won't fire on women and children. Leastways they didn't in New Orleans, and the folks in that burg were about as sassy as they could well be."

"If you are determined to carry your crazy scheme into execution, I beg that you will give us a little time to remove our families to a place of safety before you begin," said one of the citizens as he and his companion arose to their feet and turned to go away.

"Not much as anybody knows of, I won't," replied Lambert in savage tones.

"Just five minutes," pleaded the citizen. "Perhaps we can take our wives and little ones into the cellar before you will find it necessary to open fire."

"Not one minute—not one second nor a half of one," snarled the lieutenant, once more raising his weapon to his shoulder. "I aint a-goin' to have you shakin' a handkercher at them boats to warn the Yanks that there's something wrong here behind the levee. You just squat down where you are till this thing is over, and then you can go any place you please."

"Watch out, Sile," said one of the Home Guards suddenly. "There comes that feller after his grub."

Lieutenant Lambert flopped over on his face as if he had been shot, and saw a small boat, with four men at the oars and two officers sitting in the stern-sheets, come into view from behind one of the war vessels and turn toward the landing.

The time for him to win a name for himself had arrived.