UNCLE SAM'S LOST BOYS.
"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.
[Illustration: TOM RANDOLPH CAPTURED BY THE ESCAPED PRISONERS.]
"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.