"I wish I had some of your courage," said Tom at length. "I may need it, for I am liable any day to be ordered to Camp Pinckney with a squad of conscripts."

"W-h-e-w!" whistled the lieutenant. He looked at the sergeant, the sergeant looked at him, and then they both looked at Captain Tom with an expression on their faces that the latter could not understand. "Well, if this is the sort of work you partisans have to do, I am glad I am not a partisan," continued the lieutenant. "I'd rather go through Bull Run and take my chances, than attempt to travel the sixty miles between here and camp with a squad of conscripts. You will have to take to the woods, of course, and that will be the time your conscripts will give you the slip. If you start with a hundred and get through with ten you will be doing well."

"There are people here who think I'll not get through at all," said Tom. "They say that I and my men will be captured or killed."

"Of course," answered the lieutenant, who had never once thought of that contingency. "It's to be expected that you will take your chances on that. It is what we all have to do when we meet the enemy."

"Have you found them a tolerably brave lot?" inquired Captain Tom, who wanted much to meet some veteran who would assure him that the Yankees were all cowards and did not know how to fight.

"As brave as they make 'em," said the lieutenant earnestly, "and dead shots into the bargain. We have bitten off a good deal more than we can chew in ten years; now you remember what I tell you. Of course, captain, I wouldn't say that in the presence of a civilian; but one old soldier knows how to take another. Now, don't you think, sah, that you partisans could lend us a hand in capturing these Yankees."

"Why, certainly; and I will warn my company out at once," replied Tom readily. "Where will I find you at the end of a couple of hours? I want you and the sergeant to take supper and lodgings at my mother's house to-night."

"Much obliged to you, sah, but we couldn't think of it," said the lieutenant. "Colonel Parker—he's the regular who commands the camp—would take us to task for wasting time if he should hear of it, and besides, we don't want to run the risk of being gobbled."

"Gobbled?" repeated Captain Tom; for that was a word that had not yet reached his part of the Confederacy.

"Captured, you know."

"Who's going to capture you at our house?" exclaimed Tom, who could feel himself turning white.

"The Yankee scouts might, if they should happen to ride into town and any enemy of yours could tell them where to find us; and these escaped prisoners might do it."

Captain Randolph was utterly confounded. His idea of an escaped prisoner was a man running frantically for his life and too badly frightened to look behind him; but the lieutenant's words made it plain to him that the four who were foot-loose somewhere in the vicinity of Mooreville were not that sort. He became really alarmed when the soldier went on to explain the situation.

"You see they were run down and gobbled up three days ago by a large squad of our cavalry, who started them for camp under guard of four good men, one for each prisoner," said he. "But before they had been away from us half an hour, what do those Yankees do but rise up and kill their guards, take their weapons and ammunition, hitch their horses in the woods so that they could not go on and alarm the camp, and dig out through the swamp for the Mississippi River."

"And those armed and desperate prisoners are supposed to be somewhere in the settlement at this moment?" said Tom with a shudder.

"That is what we think, for the dogs tracked them within a mile of this cornfield."

"I hope you will hang them the minute you get your hands on them," said Tom, in a trembling voice.

"There are fourteen men in my squad and that is what they allow to do," replied the lieutenant; "but then they won't, for that would bring them into trouble with Colonel Parker. If a captured man sees a chance to escape he is at liberty to improve it, and to hurt anything or anybody that gets in his way; and in doing it he runs the risk of getting hurt himself."

"The first we heard of it," said the sergeant, speaking for the first time, "was when six of our men came into camp on foot, and reported that they had been disarmed and dismounted by four Yankees who had paroled and turned them loose."

"That was about as impudent a thing as I ever heard of, and it shows what a daring lot those escaped Yanks are," said the lieutenant; and instead of getting angry when he thought of it, he surprised Tom by laughing heartily, as though he looked upon it as the best kind of a joke. "A private has no right to parole anybody, but all the same those Yanks wrote out the papers in due form, and told our boys that they could either sign them or stay there in the swamp till a party came out from camp to bury them. And our boys thought they had better sign."

"I didn't suppose that escaped prisoners ever acted that way," said Captain Tom, after a few minutes of surprised silence.

"Won't they have something to talk about when they get among their friends?" said the lieutenant, with another laugh. "They are brave soldiers, and I'll bet you they are good fellows; and when the war is over, I don't care which side whips, I would like to meet them and talk over the events of the last few days. We'd have a good laugh over them."

"I don't think it is any laughing matter to kill four men as those Yanks killed their guards," replied Tom, who could not understand how men fighting under opposing flags could have the least particle of respect or kindly feeling for one another.

"Oh, that's war, you know," said the lieutenant lightly. "But you will see now why the sergeant and I must decline your kind invitation to take supper and sleep at your house. We don't want to put ourselves in a position to be surrounded and captured, for we are pretty close to Baton Rouge, and those Yanks might decide to take us along instead of parolling us. If we camp in the woods with our dogs around us we'll know that we are safe. Now, we shall have to bid you good-by, captain. You will get your company together and do what you can to help us?"

"Look out that they don't get the first shot at you, sah," suggested the sergeant.

"And if you are lucky enough to catch them may I depend on you to send them to camp under guard?" added the lieutenant. "It might be to your interest to make the acquaintance of our colonel."

Captain Randolph shook hands with the two veterans and promised to do all a loyal soldier could do to head the fugitives off from Baton Rouge and send them back to Camp Pinckney; but there was not so much heart in his promise as there was in the one he made before he learned that the Yankees were armed and daring. In order to keep up appearances, however, he put his horse into a lope as soon as the hand-shaking was over, and made the best of his way to the enrolling office. He found a few Home Guards loafing there, but not half as many as he would have found two days before. These valiant men had heard that they might be ordered off with a squad of conscripts any time, and they did not care to go while the Union cavalry were riding about through the country. So the most of them stayed at home, holding themselves in readiness to take to their heels if they saw a horseman approaching, and had any reason to believe that he had been sent by Captain Roach to warn them to report for duty. The captain was at his desk, and for some reason or other seemed to be in the best of spirits.

"You ought to have dropped in about half an hour ago," said he, as Tom walked into the office after hitching his horse at the rack in front of the door. "I have had a very pleasant visit from one of your old friends, who has just returned from Bragg's army."

Captain Randolph was so surprised that he forgot all about the daring Yankees who were running wild in the woods in close proximity to Mooreville. He left home for the express purpose of warning the enrolling officer against Rodney Gray and his chum Dick Graham, but something in the captain's manner told him that his efforts in that direction would not meet with much success; for the returned soldiers had had the first chance at the captain, and they were both smooth-tongued, winning fellows.

"If you are speaking of Rodney Gray——" began Tom, in angry tones.

"So you have seen him, have you!" exclaimed the enrolling officer, leaning back in his chair and breaking out into a peal of laughter. "Well, he's a good one, isn't he?"

"If you are speaking of him," sputtered Tom, "you know as well as I do that he is no friend of mine. I have told you so more times than I can remember."

"I know you have, and I confess that I treated him and his chum rather coldly when they came into the office and said they wanted to set themselves square with me by showing that they were honorably discharged Confederate soldiers," answered the captain. "But they did not seem to care a snap for me or for my opinion of them."

"That's just like Rodney's impudence," exclaimed Tom.

"Well, you see he has a sort of good-natured contempt for me because I am not a veteran. He knows more in five minutes than I do in a month, and he is not ignorant of the fact. He and his chum sat down without waiting to be asked, talked as though they had known me always, and I laughed till I cried over the stories they told of army life. I hope to hear more of those stories when I go up to Gray's to dinner on Thursday."

If the enrolling officer had aimed a blow at him with the ebony ruler that lay on his desk Tom Randolph would not have been more dumfounded. He leaned heavily upon the back of a chair for a moment or two, and then dropped almost helplessly into it.

"To Gray's—to dinner on Thursday!" he repeated faintly. "You can't—you mustn't go there."

"What's the reason I mustn't?" demanded Captain Roach, surprised in his turn. "Good dinners are not so plenty these times that I can afford to throw them over my shoulder."

"It isn't that," replied Tom. "It's the sentiments of the people who invited you that I object to. When you go into old man Gray's house you will go plump into a nest of traitors."

"No, I reckon not. A man who volunteers and does a soldier's duty for fifteen long months, and who shows me an honorable discharge, can't well be called a traitor."

"He stayed in the army after he got there because he had to, and did a soldier's duty for the very good reason that he couldn't help himself," said Captain Tom spitefully. "But see how he talks since he came back! He says he will not go into the army again, and declares that the Yanks who captured him while he was on the way home were gentlemen."

"Well, what would you think if you had been in his place? What was there to hinder those Yanks from taking him and Graham to Baton Rouge and turning them over to the provost marshal? They were in uniform when they were captured."

"I see you are on the side of those traitors," said Tom, rising to his feet and pounding lightly upon the captain's desk with his clenched hand, "and I have this much to say to you: If you go to Gray's you will no longer be welcome at our house."

"I shall be sorry for that, of course, but I don't suppose I can help it. Gray and his chum know all about soldiering, and as I may have to go into the army myself some day, I want to learn all I can from them. I think you would be wise to do the same."

"And while you have been having a good time with my enemies, I have been working for the cause which you made oath to support but seem to have deserted," continued Tom impressively. "I have been making arrangements to capture some of the very men whom Rodney Gray and Dick Graham promised to assist if they found them in trouble. I want all you fellows," here he turned about and addressed himself to the Home Guards who had come into the office to hear what passed between their captain and the enrolling officer, "to mount your horses at once and go in pursuit of four escaped prisoners who are hiding in the woods somewhere on the outskirts of the town. As you go, warn every other member of the company you see to turn out and join in the chase."

"Why, captain, what do you mean?" cried the enrolling officer, becoming excited at once.

Without paying the least attention to him or his question, Captain Tom proceeded to give his men a short and very incomplete account of the interview he had held with the two veterans while he was on his way to town. We say the account was incomplete because Tom did not tell his men that the fugitives had armed themselves when they escaped from their guards, and had been carrying things with a high hand ever since. He was afraid he could not raise much of a squad to aid in the pursuit if he told that; so all he said was that the four Yankees were striking for Baton Rouge, that fourteen Confederate veterans had been following them with hounds for three days past, and that if they (the Home Guards) would turn out in a body and capture the prisoners from under the noses of the Confederates, it might be a feather in their hats. The Home Guards thought so too; and hardly waiting for Tom to get through with what he had to tell them, they made a rush through the door toward the rack at which their horses were hitched.

"I am glad to see you so prompt to obey orders," shouted Captain Tom, following them to the sidewalk and waving his hand to them as they rode off one after the other. "We'll show the authorities that there are some loyal people around here yet. I'll be with you as soon as I can ride home and get my uniform and weapons, but you needn't wait. Divide yourselves into squads of six or eight, and search every nook and corner of the woods you can get into between this time and dark. And don't forget corn-cribs and nigger cabins, nor the cellars and lofts of Union men."

"I think it strange that you did not bring those Confederate officers straight to my office," said the conscript captain, when the last Home Guard had ridden away out of sight.

"Since you have deserted loyal people for the society of those who say that they will not do anything more for the cause they pretend to believe in, I am sorry myself that I did not bring them here," answered Tom. "But I did not once think of it. I am glad they did not accept my invitation to supper, for I should have felt obliged to ask you to join them. Where are you going?" he added, when Captain Roach began bundling his papers into his desk and locking the drawers.

"I am going to help capture those four Yankees," said he. "They are Confederate prisoners, and I am a Confederate officer."

Tom did not wait to see him off, but mounted his horse and set out for home at top speed, as if he were impatient to arm himself and join his men in the pursuit; but he went long distances out of his way to summon members of his company whom he knew he would not find at home, so that it was after three o'clock when he galloped through his father's gate and drew rein at the foot of the steps. He had had ample time to think over the situation and make up his mind what he would do.

"My dear boy," exclaimed Mrs. Randolph, when Tom had hurriedly explained matters to her, "you must not risk your life and liberty by going in pursuit of those escaped prisoners. I'll never consent to it; never in this world."

"Then show me, please, how I can get out of it," answered Captain Tom, gently disengaging himself from his mother's clinging hands and starting up the stairs toward his room. "Some of my men are in the woods by this time, and if that lieutenant should happen to run against them, his first question would be: 'Where's your captain? He ought to be here, conducting the pursuit in person.' Really I must show up, mother, for I want those veterans to tell Colonel Parker, when they go back to camp, that I did all I could to aid them in capturing the Yanks."

"Then you are sure they will be captured—that they will not be permitted to roam at liberty during the night?" said Mrs. Randolph, who had never before exhibited so much nervousness and anxiety as she did at that moment. "I couldn't sleep if I knew they were at large."

"No, I am not sure of it, for they have proved themselves to be both daring and cunning. Just think what they have done! They have killed their guards, captured and paroled half a dozen soldiers, and kept out of reach of the hounds for three days; and such men are not going to be taken easily, I bet you," replied Tom from the head of the stairs; and then he went into his room to don his uniform and buckle on his sword and revolver. A few minutes later he came out to ask his mother what she thought of Captain Roach's way of doing business.

"I wonder if he couldn't be reported and hauled over the coals for associating with those Grays?" said Tom.

"If the captain is disloyal—and we have no way of judging of his feelings except by his actions—I certainly think his superior officers ought to know it," said Mrs. Randolph. "But, my dear——"

"I know what you want to say," interrupted Captain Tom. "You mean that if I report him for any of his shortcomings, he will conscript me. Then he had better do it at once, for if he waits a week it will be too late."

"Tom, are you going to resign your commission?"

"I am going to take Larkin's place as overseer of this plantation," replied Tom, very decidedly. "I thought it would be a big come-down at first, but since I have thought the matter over, I have made up my mind that it will be a change for the better. I can't be forced into the army; being a civilian I may be able to obtain some salt, coffee, and things from the Yanks; and if father ever has a chance to sell that cotton, I shall be at hand to help him run it up out of the swamp."

Captain Tom fully expected that his mother would strongly object to these plans, and he even thought she might denounce him as a traitor to the South and its flag; but somewhat to his surprise she did nothing of the kind. She, too, had had leisure to think the matter over, and much against her will had been obliged to confess to herself that it didn't pay to be too good a rebel while the Federals held undisputed possession of Baton Rouge, and blue-coated cavalry were scouting about through the country. She even wished that Tom would hide his uniform, his military saddle and bridle, and his sword where nobody would ever see them again.

"That is what I have decided to do," continued Captain Tom, as he slipped his six-shooter into its holster and came down the stairs, "and I mean to attend to it as soon as I see those four Yanks captured."

"Perhaps it would be as well," answered his mother. "Delays are sometimes dangerous. But I don't see how I can give my consent to let you go on this expedition."

"Don't worry about me. I am bound to come back all right, and I'll never have to go on another. And when that traitor Roach gets ready to send off his conscripts, he can tell somebody besides me to take them."

"Will you recommend anyone to the Governor to take your place?"

"Not much. I don't care whether or not anybody gets it, so long as Lambert is left out in the cold with a fair chance of being sent to Camp Pinckney. Good-by, mother. I must be off, or some evil-minded person in the settlement will accuse me of shirking my duty."

The leave-taking was a tearful one on Mrs. Randolph's part, but Captain Tom could not have been more unconcerned if he had been going to Mooreville to buy groceries. He thought he knew a way to keep up his reputation as a loyal Southerner and steer clear of the dreaded Yankees at the same time.

"There's one thing about it," soliloquized Tom, as he galloped out of the gate, waving a last farewell to his mother as he went, "our folks are not as fierce for secession as they used to be, and I am mighty glad to know it. We're getting so we live awful hard. Our table is a sight to behold, with nothing on it but corn pone, bacon, sweet potato coffee, and buttermilk from one week's end to another's, and I am getting tired of such grub. And where am I going to raise forty-five dollars in Confederate money to pay for a pair of boots when these wear out? There's plenty of gold in the house, and I could use it to good advantage if I could only get into Baton Rouge and obtain a permit from the provost marshal to trade there. I'll bet you that Rodney Gray and that chum of his will be rigged out spick-and-span from head to foot the next time I see them, and they will buy their things inside the Yankee lines, too. Now, I'll tell you what's a fact; I've just as much right to use the Yankees as they have."

When Captain Tom reached this point in his meditations he drew rein in front of a pair of bars giving entrance into a lane that ran through his father's plantation in the direction of the river. The house was concealed from his view by an abrupt bend in the road, and a hasty glance on each side showed him that there was no one in sight; so he bent down from his saddle, opened the bars, and rode into the lane. It is true that the escaped prisoners and the soldiers and hounds that were pursuing them were not on that side of the road, but two miles away in the opposite direction, but Captain Tom did not stop to think of that. He knew where he was going, and made all haste to get there as soon as he had put up the bars.

"There are not half a dozen citizens in the neighborhood who will lend a hand in catching those prisoners, and the last one of the Home Guards will fall out and strike for a place of safety the minute they find out that the Yanks are armed," thought Tom, as he rode swiftly along the lane, turning about in his saddle now and then to make sure that no one was observing his movements. "And that being the case, why should I risk my life in trying to capture them? Say! By gracious!"

As this exclamation fell from Captain Tom's lips he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and looked first at the road and then at the cluster of trees that shut the house off from his sight. He spent a minute or two in this way and then rode on again.

"That's a splendid idea, but my wit always comes too late to be of any use to me," said he angrily; and he avenged himself on his slow wit by hitting his spirited horse such a stinging cut with his whip that the animal came very near "flying" the road and going off into the ditch. "Instead of this gray uniform, which will send me to a Northern prison if the Yankees ever catch me with it on, why didn't I keep on my citizen's clothes? Then I needn't have had the least fear of meeting the prisoners. I could have fed and sheltered them to-night and guided them to the city in the morning; and in return for my services I could have asked the provost marshal to give me a permit to buy some things in the stores. Dog-gone the luck!"

Captain Randolph hit his horse another merciless blow with the whip, and this time the animal's sudden spring had a most astounding result. He jumped sideways clear over the ditch that ran by the side of the road, and when he landed on the opposite bank he stopped so quickly that his rider was thrown headlong from his saddle, bringing up among the cotton stalks ten feet farther on. He was not in the least injured or even jarred by his fall, but he was tolerably angry to find himself so easily unhorsed. He raised himself on his elbow, but before he could make another move, or give utterance to his pent-up feelings, a voice near at hand said pleasantly:

"Glad to see you, John, but didn't expect to be introduced in such a promiscuous manner, you know. Don't stand on ceremony, but come right in. The latch-string is always out."

This incident happened almost in the edge of the little grove of evergreens toward which Captain Tom had been directing his course ever since he passed through the bars. It was his intention to conceal himself and his horse among the evergreens and remain there in safety until dark, while the rest of the Home Guards and the citizens, if any there were who had a fancy to join Captain Roach in such perilous business, searched the woods for the escaped prisoners.

Tom Randolph's first feeling was one of the most intense surprise, without a particle of fear or anxiety in it; but when he rolled over on his side to bring his face toward the grove, he was almost paralyzed with terror to see three ragged fellows in nondescript uniforms advancing swiftly upon him, while a fourth covered his head with a cocked carbine from the edge of the evergreens. One of the three secured his horse, which had not moved an inch since he rid himself of his inhuman rider, a second swung the black muzzle of a musket in unpleasant proximity to his face, and the third knelt by his side and took possession of his sword and revolver.

"Was yer looking fur we uns, Johnny boy?" chuckled the one who held the musket. "If yer was, hyar we is. Mighty glad to see yer, and dat's a fac'. Come along now, and we uns will cut a watermillyun."

"Who—who are you?" gasped Tom, whose terror was greatly increased by the soldier's grim humor.

"Well, Johnny, we're so ragged and dirty just now that we don't rightly know who we are, except that we are some of Uncle Sam's lost boys," replied the one who had captured the sword and revolver. "I expect he's down to Baton Rouge now waiting for us, and so we'd best be toddling along. Take that horse into the grove out of sight, Ben. Come on, Johnny."

"Have you heard hounds giving tongue in the woods anywhere about here?" inquired the one who had first spoken.

Tom was so nearly overcome with fear that he could not answer. He hardly knew when two of Uncle Sam's lost boys took him by the arms and raised him to his feet. All he realized was that he had run squarely into the hands of those he had tried so hard to avoid.