"Why, Tom, what has happened to make you look so pale and haggard?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Randolph, as the perplexed and discouraged captain of the Home Guards drew rein before the door and rolled out of his saddle instead of dismounting in his usual soldier-like fashion. "Are you ill, or have you heard some terrible news?"

"Both," replied Tom, giving his horse a slap to start him toward the stable, and afterward throwing himself down upon one of the steps that led up to the porch. "Who do you suppose has come back to town to worry and torment me?"

"I hope it isn't Rodney Gray," said his mother, who had not forgotten that the Barrington boy had been elected to office and presented with a sword by Bob Hubbard's Rangers, while her son was left in the ranks. Although she never said so out loud, she had indulged in the hope that something might happen to keep Rodney away from Mooreville as long as the war lasted. She knew that he had faced the Yankees in a good many hard battles, and, being a veteran, of course he would crow over Tom, who was nothing but a Home Guard.

"Well, it is Rodney Gray, and nobody else," said Captain Randolph, in a tone of intense disgust. "He looks as though he had been living on the fat of the land, for the citizen's clothes he discarded when he went into the army are much too small for him. He has brought with him a comrade who lives in Missouri and who, I judge, is waiting for a chance to get over the river; and he's about the most impudent chap I ever talked to. He knows more about gunboats than I who have been in battle with them."

"Have you not learned that those who are the most conceited generally know the least? But you are not obliged to associate with them, and besides you can't; for you are an officer and they were nothing but privates."

"I know that, and I did not at all like the familiar way in which they talked to me. They gave me bad news. They were captured by Federal cavalry while they were coming home."

"Tom!" exclaimed Mrs. Randolph, who was much surprised and alarmed to hear it, "do you mean to say that our enemies are scouting through the country?"

"That's what I mean; and if you have any valuables you don't want to lose, you had better be taking care of them."

"That is what I think. How did Rodney manage to escape?"

"He didn't escape. The Yankees read his discharge and let him go free. And that chum of his, Dick Graham, says they were gentlemen, and if he ever sees one of them in a scrape he will help him out if he can. And they are both tired of the war and don't mean to go back to the army. The way they talked was shameful, and I will speak to Roach about it the very next time I go to the office."

Tom then went on to repeat the conversation that had taken place between himself and the returned veterans, and by the time he got through his mother was as deeply perplexed and as badly frightened as he was. Two things were plain to her: Rodney and Dick were traitors at heart, and ought to be arrested and imprisoned before they had time to talk to any of the conscripts as they had talked to Tom, and the other was that her son could not take a squad of men to the camp of instruction and run the risk of being captured by the Federal troopers.

"Now that I have had time to think of it, I don't care whether they are shut up or not," answered Captain Tom. "If they are permitted to run loose in the settlement and to talk to the conscripts as they did to me, they may frighten them into deserting to Baton Rouge; and in that case, don't you see, there wouldn't be any men for anybody to guard to the camp of instruction. But if a squad is sent there I am bound to go in command of the escort; I don't see how I can get out of it, for I told Rodney that I was going."

"What of that? Why can't you send Lambert, or let Captain Roach go in your place?"

"If you can think of any excuse I can offer for not going I shall be delighted to hear it," replied Tom. "But if I back out after what I have said about Ned Griffin's cowardice and all that, Rodney Gray will never let me hear the last of it. I haven't said much to you about it, but all the returned soldiers laugh every time my name is mentioned in their hearing, and make sport of the Home Guards because they are willing to acknowledge me as their commander; and I believe that is one thing that makes them so ready to rebel whenever I issue an order they don't like. Of course Rodney will be the worst of all, for he never liked me."

"Why, my dear boy, you are in a predicament, that's a fact," exclaimed Mrs. Randolph, who had never dreamed that the situation was as bad as this. She knew that Tom would not see a minute's peace if he gave the common people of Mooreville, especially such low fellows as the returned veterans and those who composed the rank and file of the Home Guards, any reason for believing that he was lacking in courage. "What can you do? Have you decided upon anything?"

"I have not. That is something you will have to do for me. As far as I can see there are but two courses of action open to me: I must either take the conscripts to camp and take my chances on being shot or captured——"

"O Tom, I'll never consent to that," exclaimed his mother, almost tearfully. "You had much better follow young Griffin's example. Your father and I can arrange all that by sending Larkin into the army and putting you in his place."

Larkin was Mr. Randolph's overseer; and he had not been conscripted by Captain Roach because his employer had claimed exemption for him. Mr. Randolph supposed, and so did his wife, that Tom was provided for as long as the war continued; and as it was necessary that they should have an overseer they decided that Larkin would do as well as anybody else, and Tom's father had entered into a verbal contract to purchase his freedom by providing the hundred pounds of bacon and beef demanded by the Confederate Government. They would not have done such a thing if they had had the least suspicion that Tom's position as captain of the Home Guards was likely to bring him into contact with the Yankees.

"That is the only alternative," said Tom. "I must face death or confinement in a Northern dungeon, or I must send my resignation to the Governor at the new capital. But I am afraid Larkin will demand a larger bounty than father will be willing to pay."

"Your father will not give him a penny with my consent," said Mrs. Randolph very decidedly. "He is a hireling, and his wishes will not be consulted. He will simply be discharged; that is all there is of it."

"But he is obstinate and hard to deal with, and perhaps he will refuse to go before his year is out," suggested Captain Tom.

"In times like these civil contracts are not worth the paper they are written on," said his mother, in a tone which seemed to imply that she had already determined upon some course of action. "There are some hundred hands on this plantation, and if your father should find it impossible or inconvenient to pay, within twelve months, the eighty thousand pounds of meat which the Confederate Government will demand as the price of Larkin's exemption, then what? I think myself that Larkin will take to the woods before he will go into the army."

"I don't care where he goes so long as he gets out of my way," declared Captain Tom. "I don't know what our neighbors will think of me when they see me in the field with a gang of niggers, but I can't discover any other way out of the difficulty; can you?"

"At present I cannot; but I would much rather know that you were safe in the field and within sound of the dinner-horn, than to fear that you were in danger of being shot or captured. Perhaps we had best let the subject rest where it is until I have had time to ask your father what he thinks about it. I will tell you our decision to-morrow; and meanwhile don't commit yourself. There goes the bell."

It was the call to dinner and Captain Tom answered it, although he did not have much appetite for the things he found on the table. His father had of late got out of the way of asking his son if he had heard any news in town, but when the latter remarked that he had met and talked with Rodney Gray that morning, and that Rodney and his companion had been captured by the enemy while on the way home, Mr. Randolph took interest enough in the matter to inquire into the particulars, and to ask Tom if he didn't think he would run some risk in taking conscripts to camp.

"Risk!" repeated Captain Tom. "You may well say that. Roach thinks I will have to fight my way, and so does Rodney. He said in so many words that I would be sure to lose my prisoners, that the Home Guards would be brushed out of the way like cobwebs, and if I got through with a whole skin he would call me a good one. Risk! I should think so. It's positively dangerous!"

"Well, if you don't want to go, there is one way you can get out of it," replied Mr. Randolph, as he folded his napkin and pushed his chair back from the table. "You can throw up your commission."

"I have thought of resigning," said Tom; and he had half a mind to broach the subject of Larkin's discharge then and there, but finally concluded that he would leave it to his mother.

"As far as I am concerned, I shall be glad to see you a civilian once more, and to know that I shall never put eyes on that sword and uniform again," continued Mr. Randolph. "The Southern people are all fools, and a year ago I was one of the most senseless of them."

"Does that mean that you have given up the hope of Southern independence?" inquired Tom, who was not greatly surprised, although he had never heard his father talk in this way before.

"It means that we have made beggars of ourselves by trying to break up the government when we had no earthly excuse for it. We were never short of anything before, and now I am put to my stumps to find paper to write on and salt for my table. There will be no bacon and hams for us next winter unless I can induce some of my friends to do a little trading in Baton Rouge for me. I dare not go into the city to do it for myself, for you are captain of the Home Guards. I wish in my soul that I had had a guardian appointed over me about the time I was making such an idiot of myself on account of that company."

Mr. Randolph rubbed some "nigger twist" between his palms, jammed it rather spitefully into an earthen pipe with a cane stem, and went out on the gallery to enjoy his after-dinner smoke. He was a rich planter, and it was not so very long ago that his crop of cotton was worth a fortune to him every year; but he could not smoke cigars now unless they were given to him. Some of his neighbors who had not taken so deep an interest in the Home Guards, Rodney Gray's father for one, had passes that took them in and out of Baton Rouge as often as they chose to make use of them; and these men had salt and tea and coffee, stockings and shoes and cigars in abundance, and "plenty of greenback money, too," as one darkey affirmed, who chanced to catch a momentary glimpse of the inside of Mr. Gray's pocket-book.

Mr. Randolph made his exit from the room through one of the low windows that opened upon the veranda, sat down long enough to take a dozen or more pulls at his pipe, and then came back to say:

"Tom, you want to be kinder careful what you tell about Rodney Gray and his folks, for, if we work matters right, I am sure Gray will lend me a helping hand now and then; and goodness knows I need it bad enough. I suspicion that in some way or other he has got on the blind side of the Yankees in Baton Rouge."

"Then he ought to be reported to our authorities," said Mrs. Randolph spitefully.

"That's what I say!" exclaimed Captain Tom. "If he is giving aid and comfort to the enemy he is breaking our laws; and I say——"

"Hold your horses," interrupted his father. "What is the use of cutting off your nose to spite your face? Instead of giving aid and comfort to the Federals, he is working them so that they are giving much aid and comfort to him and a few others who are in the ring with him."

"And is it your desire to become one of that 'ring,' as you call it?" demanded his wife, pitching her voice in a little higher key than usual. "Would you collogue with the enemies of your country for the sake of making something out of them? Mr. Randolph—George—I am surprised to hear you hint at such baseness; and in the presence of a prominent State officer, too."

"Hold your horses," said Mr. Randolph again. "If I can make something to eat and wear by trading with the Yankees, who seem to have enough and to spare, it is to my interest and yours to do it, is it not? And through it all I can still be a good Confederate, can't I? Look here," he continued, walking up to the table and sinking his voice almost to a whisper. "I have 200 bales of cotton concealed in the swamp, and Gray has more than twice as much. And every bale of that cotton is worth sixty cents a pound in New York."

Mr. Randolph straightened up and looked at his wife and son as much as to say, "What do you think of that?" He expected them to be surprised, and certainly he was not disappointed. For a minute or two they were so amazed that they could not speak.

"Six—did I understand you to say sixty cents a pound?" Captain Tom managed to ask at last.

"Where did you hear that ridiculous story?" chimed in Mrs. Randolph. "I have read the papers very closely, and I didn't see anything of it."

"Do you for a moment imagine that our lying papers——"

"Mr. Randolph—George!"

"Hold your horses. I know what I am talking about. It is a fact that our papers conceal everything that goes against us, or make light of it, and of course they wouldn't say that cotton is bringing sixty cents in the North while in the Confederacy it is worth only seven. If our papers should publish such reports as that, don't you see that the Confederacy wouldn't get any more cotton? Every planter who owns a bale would make haste to run it into the swamp."

"If I had any cotton I would rather give it to our government for three cents than to our enemies for twenty times as much," declared Captain Tom, who, seeing that he did not possess a pound of the commodity in question, could afford to be very patriotic. He looked at his mother, expecting to hear her say that she would do the same; but she gazed down at her plate and said nothing. Sixty cents a pound! Reckoning each bale at 450 pounds that would make her husband's concealed cotton worth about $54,000, if it could only be placed in the hands of the Yankees without being confiscated. But there was the rub.

"Tom, you always were about half-witted," exclaimed his father, who was so angry that he spoke without thinking. "I would rather have sixty cents in greenback money than four dollars in Confederate scrip any day; and I don't see the use of your talking in that senseless way."

"But your cotton is in the swamp, and how are you going to get it to New York?" asked Mrs. Randolph.

"And how do you know that you and the darkeys who helped you put it there are the only ones who know where it is?" chimed in Tom. "The Lincoln hirelings have been stealing cotton all the way from Cairo to Vicksburg, and what assurance have you that some enemy of ours will not guide a gang of blue-coats from Baton Rouge to the place where it is hidden?"

"I have no assurance whatever, and that is one thing that robs me of sleep at night," replied Mr. Randolph; and the nervous way in which he puffed at his pipe and strode about the room showed that the thought made him uneasy every time it came into his mind. "Of course I stand a chance of losing it; but if I can keep it a few months longer I know it will be worth a big sum of money to us—and good money, too. One of our neighbors, who shall be nameless, showed me a couple of Northern papers he brought from Baton Rouge last night, and both of them contained a notice of that sale of cotton in New York. There were seventy bales of it, and it was confiscated at Port Royal. Some of the ranking officers in the city also told him that there was some talk of opening a trade in cotton at all points occupied by Federal troops, and that influential parties were applying by the hundred for permits. He could have told me more if he had felt like it, but Tom, your miserable Home Guards, whom I wish I had never heard of, made him shut his mouth. I am afraid I ruined myself utterly by helping you organize that company."

Too nervous and excited to say more, Mr. Randolph stepped through the window to the porch, and Tom left the table and went slowly upstairs. He could not have told what prompted him to do it, but when he reached his room he took off his fine uniform and arrayed himself in a suit of citizen's clothes. He stood his elegant sword up in the corner of his closet, and when it slipped down so that he could not close the door, he kicked it out of the way as he would have done with any other worthless piece of furniture. For some reason he seemed to have conceived a sudden and violent dislike to everything that reminded him of the service in which, one short year ago, his whole soul been wrapped up; and when he mounted his horse, which a darkey had brought to the door, and the animal began to prance and go sideways, as he had been taught to do, Captain Tom was so angry that he lashed him unmercifully with his whip, and would have kept him in a dead run all the way to the enrolling office, had it not been for an unexpected and somewhat startling interruption.

Although there were many extensive and well-cultivated plantations around Mooreville, there were some unbroken patches of timber which stretched away into the Pearl River country and beyond. This timberland was mostly low and intersected by innumerable little streams, which, when the Pearl was "booming" at certain seasons of the year, overflowed their banks and turned all the productive bottom into an immense swamp. It was here that Tom Randolph's hog-stealing lieutenant plied his vocation, though he might have had venison instead of pork, if he had not been too lazy to hunt for it; for the bottom was a famous place for game of all kinds. There were runaway negroes there too, by the score, and their numbers had increased wonderfully since the war broke out.

It was while Tom was galloping furiously past one of these patches of timber, which was separated from the road by a narrow field of corn, that his attention was attracted by the loud baying of a pack of hounds; but his mind was so fully occupied with the punishment he was inflicting upon his unoffending horse that he did not give much heed to it, until he caught sight of a couple of men riding swiftly through the corn a little in advance of him. When they reached the fence that ran between the field and the road one of them threw off the top rails so that they could jump their horses over it, while the other raised his hand as a signal for Tom to stop. Then he saw that the men were strangers to him, that they wore gray uniforms, were armed with carbines and sabres instead of squirrel rifles and shot guns, and wore plumes in their slouch hats instead of rooster feathers. They were veterans beyond a doubt; but where did they come from, and what were they doing in that country, which was supposed to be guarded by an efficient company of Home Guards? Their presence angered Captain Tom, and he wished he had the authority to order them back where they belonged without asking any questions; but they greeted him very civilly.

"Good-afternoon," said the foremost, as he leaped his horse over the ditch and came into the road where Tom was waiting for him; then he made a military salute which was promptly and gracefully returned. "Ah! I thought you were one of us from the start," continued the veteran. "What regiment?"

"I do not belong to any regiment," admitted Tom. "I am commander of a partisan company and hold a commission from the Governor."

"Seen any service?" was the soldier's next question.

"More than I want to see again," replied Tom, who had not yet been cured of his propensity to boast as often as the chance was presented. "The enemy's gunboats have kept me pretty busy since they came up from New Orleans."

"Well, if you've got courage enough to fight gunboats, you've got more than I have," said the veteran honestly. "How high up are you?"

"I am a captain."

"I beg your pardon, sah, I have been a little too fast. I am only a second lieutenant, and my comrade is a first duty sergeant," and then the lieutenant and his sergeant both raised their caps. They had evidently served under some officer who exacted all the honors due him.

Of course they took the right course to gain Tom's good will and bring them an invitation to supper, but they did not do it intentionally. Having served at the front ever since they enlisted, and until they were transferred to the invalid corps on account of wounds received in battle they had never seen any Home Guards, and did not know the estimation in which that useless organization was held by the people who knew the most about them. They had heard of the exploits of John S. Mosby, who commanded a body of men that were farmers during the daytime and robbers and cut-throats at night, and who had kept certain portions of Virginia in a turmoil even before he was thought to be worthy of a commission in the Confederate army, and they supposed that every company of partisans was just like his. Consequently they were ready to treat Tom Randolph with the greatest respect.

The latter drew himself up very stiffly, assumed a soldier's position in the saddle, copying Rodney Gray as nearly as he could, and said with the dignity befitting his rank:

"I assure you that no apologies are necessary. I am always glad to shake a loyal Confederate by the hand." And he proved it by extending to each of the veterans a palm that was as limp as a piece of wet rope. "Now, may I ask where you belong, and what business brought you to this part of the country?"

"Certainly, sah. We used to belong to Jackson's brigade and division, but were invalided on account of injuries received in action, and are now serving as guards at a conscript camp, dog-gone the luck. We are on the trail of four escaped Yankees who are making tracks for Baton Rouge. Didn't you hear our dogs giving tongue just now?"

"I noticed it, but supposed the hounds were running something on their own hook. I noticed, too, that they yelped as though they were baffled."

"And so they are. We have followed the trail for forty miles through swamp and briers and cane, and now we have lost it completely. We ought to have captured and hung the villains long ago, but everywhere along their line of flight they have been assisted by the negroes. We found abundant proof of it."

"Well, that bangs me!" exclaimed Tom, who, like many others of his class, labored under the delusion that the slaves did not know who their friends were. "Why did you not shoot the negroes?"

"For the very good reason, sah, that we could not place the blame upon any particular ones. We found where the Yanks had been fed, and once came so close upon them that we captured some quilts which the darkeys had loaned them for beds; but among the hundred and fifty negroes on that plantation we could not find the one who owned the quilts. Do you know of any Union men or blacks around here who would be likely to give them food and shelter, or aid them in reaching Baton Rouge?"

If that question had been asked him the day before Captain Randolph could have mentioned the names of a dozen white men who were mean and disloyal enough to give food and shelter to anybody who wore a blue uniform, but now he could not think of a single one. Among others he would have given the names of some returned soldiers who had spread dissatisfaction in the ranks of his company by deriding Tom's ability as a commander and laughing at the story of his battles with the iron-clads, and he would have asked the lieutenant what he thought of fellows like Rodney Gray and Dick Graham who did not hesitate to declare that they were sick of the army, and did not intend to go back if they could help it. He would have told, too, of the trading that was continually going on between the Yankee invaders and so-called Confederates who lived in Baton Rouge and Mooreville; but somehow he did not speak of any of these things. The knowledge that Mooreville might at any moment be occupied by Federal cavalry frightened him; and the plain words his father spoke at the dinner table opened his eyes to the fact that silence was sometimes good policy. So he made answer:

"There are several people about here who are suspected of being Union, but I can't say whether they are or not. I drove some out of the settlement months ago, and they have never returned."

"That was perfectly right, sah," said the lieutenant, "but I should think you would be afraid to stay here. What will you do when the Yanks come swarming into town, and some mean sneak tells them that you have been persecuting Union men? You will have to take to the brush."

"But do you think the enemy is in sufficient force to ride over us like that?" inquired Tom anxiously. He had often asked himself this very question, and tried to find comfort in the hope that the Yankees would never find their way to Mooreville.

"Oh, it doesn't require much force to take full possession of a little town like this," replied the veteran. "I could do it with a dozen men. We have seen 200 of their cavalry since we have been on this hunt."

"You have seen them!" ejaculated Tom.

"Yes. We ran into some of them and had to skirmish our way out. We have seen a squad on every road except this, and how those four escaped prisoners we are after missed seeing them beats me."

"Do you mean to tell me that there are 200 Yankees between here and Camp Pinckney?" exclaimed Tom, who did not like to hear Rodney's story and Dick's confirmed in this positive way. "I should think you would have turned back when you found your way blocked."

"Since you are an old soldier, sah, and have snuffed Yankee powder, I know that you are joking. Our way wasn't blocked, and we had no orders to turn back. We were commanded to capture those four men and bring them to Camp Pinckney without the loss of an hour; and so we kept right on as though there hadn't been a Yank within 1000 miles of us."

Captain Randolph gazed admiringly at the veteran, who did not talk or act as though he had done more than any other soldier would have done under the circumstances.