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RODNEY, THE OVERSEER.

A DISGUSTED HOME GUARD.

"I don't say that you fellows played the part of cowards by firing into that unarmed boat, but you acted like born idiots, and it would serve you just right if the citizens of Baton Rouge should come out here in a body and lynch the last one of you. Why do you not wait for orders from me instead of roaming about the country acting on your own responsibility? I know what the Confederacy expects this company to do and you don't."

"Now jest listen at you, Tom Randolph."

"Yes, listen when your commanding officer speaks, and remember that there is a handle to my name and that I expect you to use it as often as you address me."

"Yes, I did; and I would have done it in a soldier-like manner if you had obeyed my orders, as you promised to do when you were sworn into the service. But when you made up your minds that you knew more than your captain and set out to have your own way, you got yourselves into hot water directly, and I am very glad of it. If you have come to your senses and will promise that from this time on you will obey my orders to the letter, and quit going off on raids unless I send you, I will do the best I can for you; but the minute you take the bits in your teeth, as you have been doing for the last few months, that minute I will throw you over and the conscript officer can take you and welcome. And mark my words, this is the last warning I shall give you. The last one of you ought to be court-martialled and shot."

It was a motley group of men and boys, perhaps a score of them in all, who were gathered at the foot of the wide steps that led up to the front door of Mr. Randolph's plantation house, and one could have told at a glance that they were as excited and angry as was the young officer in Confederate uniform on the gallery above, who shook his fists at them over the railing, and addressed them in the imperious language we have just recorded. The most of the group were dressed like soldiers, and that was what they claimed to be; but whether they belonged to the Union or Confederate army it would have been hard to tell, for their clothing was an odd mixture of the uniforms of both. It would have been quite as hard to tell whether they belonged to the artillery, infantry, or cavalry, for the distinguishing colors of these three branches of the service were about equally represented. These men and boys called themselves Home Guards; and they were members of the independent company that Tom Randolph and his father raised and equipped after Tom failed to get himself elected second lieutenant of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. You remember something about that, do you not?

When the war excitement was at its height in the spring of 1861, and Rodney Gray, Marcy Gray's cousin, left the military academy at Barrington because he could not study while others were going into the Southern army and making ready to fight for the cause in which they honestly believed, he was bound by a compact he had made with some other red-hot rebels in his class to enlist within twenty-four hours after he reached home provided he could get to a recruiting office in that time. The uniform he wore at school was gray, and so was the one adopted by those who were determined to break up the government because they could no longer do as they pleased with it; and impulsive Rodney Gray, carried away by the excitement of the hour, declared that he would not wear any other color until the South had gained her independence. He found it easy to keep the first part of his promise, for it so happened that he came home in time to join an independent company of cavalry that was being raised in his immediate neighborhood, and which was intended to be so very select that no applicant could get into the company if a single member of it objected to him.

Among the prominent citizens of Mooreville who took a deep interest in the organization , and used both money and influence to help it along, was Mr. Randolph, Tom's father. If any young fellow who stood well in the community hesitated to send in his name because he could not raise money enough to buy a horse and fit himself out as well as the other Rangers were fitted out, Mr. Randolph was prompt to come to his aid with the assurance that if he would go ahead and enlist, money need not stand in his way, for the horse, uniform, weapons, and all other necessary things would be forthcoming. He scoured the country for miles around for recruits, and did so much in other ways to aid the company that when the Rangers made their first camp, and hoisted above it the flag under which they hoped to ride to victory, they named it Camp Randolph.

This gentleman was so rabid a Secessionist that he was utterly unreasonable. In fact, some of his warmest friends declared that he was about half crazy. He had no clearer conception of the sufferings and trials that he and those who believed as he did were bringing upon the people of the South than the most ignorant negro on his plantations. The men of the North belonged to an inferior race and did not know how to fight. They were going to be whipped without any trouble at all, and when the Southern troops had covered themselves with glory by taking and holding Washington, while Jefferson Davis dictated terms of peace to the Lincoln hirelings, he wanted all the Mooreville boys there to witness the grand and imposing spectacle, and that was why he urged them to enlist. That was about what Mr. Randolph said, and no doubt he was honest with himself as well as with the recruits he brought into Captain Hubbard's company; but events proved that he had another object in view and one that he did not think it best to speak of.

"Now let's see how they will get on with their Partisan Rangers," Tom said to his father that night. "There's almost too much social equality in that company anyway to suit me. I have noticed it ever since I have been in it. Who is their second lieutenant, the man they shoved into my place? A common book-keeper who never in his life had the price of a pickaninny in his pocket."

Tom hoped and believed that by withdrawing from the company he had inflicted a blow upon it from which it would never recover; but to his surprise and disgust the Rangers went ahead with their plans as if nothing had happened. Rodney Gray, the only member of the organization who knew anything about military matters, was made first duty sergeant and drill-master; and under his skillful management the Rangers changed so rapidly from awkward greenhorns to soldiers, and became so proficient in the school of the company, that the deserters, with the single exception of Tom Randolph himself, began to repent their hasty action, and ask one another what they could do to induce the Rangers to take them back again. They knew they could not look to Mr. Randolph for an outfit, for he took Tom's defeat as a deliberate insult to his family, and instead of promoting enlistments in the company was doing all he could to stop them. The only one they could turn to for help was Rodney Gray's father--a man who had said and done nothing of consequence to show that he was in favor of partisan organizations, and who was looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors because he put no faith in the final success of the secession movement, and did not hesitate to say that the South would be whipped as she deserved to be for trying to break up the government. There were thousands of wealthy and influential men in Louisiana who believed as he did; and yet they did more to help the soldiers than the blatant rebels who were fierce for a fight at the beginning, but went over to the Federals at the first opportunity, and became "spies and informers for the sake of the loaves and fishes that fell into their hands." The sequel proved that the recruits went to the right man, for six of the eleven were fitted out at Mr. Gray's expense. And he did not boast of it either, as Mr. Randolph and Tom had done.

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