"If you want help, why don't you bring into your ranks all the Home Guards around here?" said Rodney.
"Are there Home Guards about here? I am glad to know it, for we need all the help we can raise. Who's their captain and where are his headquarters?"
Rodney gave the desired information, adding that if his visitor did not think it safe to venture as far as Mooreville with the small force at his command, he and Dick would volunteer to take a message to Captain Randolph. "But you will have to put it in writing," said he, "for Tom will not believe us. And you must caution him against letting his men know that there is going to be a fight; for if they find that out they'll scatter like rats in a pantry."
"Like Home Guards everywhere," replied the soldier in disgust. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said he, after thinking a moment. "I'll get a line from the colonel commanding our advance ordering Captain Randolph to hold his company in readiness to march at a moment's notice, and I'll either bring or send it here to-night if you will deliver it. Of course you'll not say anything to him or anybody else that will get to the enemy's ears."
"Oh, you needn't think to surprise the Yanks," exclaimed Dick. "They have had notice already that you are coming. But we'll get Tom out if we can."
The soldier asked a few more questions that the boys could not answer satisfactorily touching the length, shape, and strength of the Federal lines at Baton Rouge, and then joined his men, who moved down the road toward Mooreville.
"Did you forget Captain Roach and his conscripts?" asked Dick, when they were out of sight.
"I left them out on purpose," said Rodney. "But of course I shall speak to Roach about it when we take that note to Tom Randolph. His conscripts are all my near neighbors, and mostly Union men, who wouldn't be of the least use in a fight; and, Dick," here Rodney sunk his voice to a whisper, "if I can do it without risk to myself, I shall go out of my way to warn them of what's coming."
"Oh, you traitor!" cried Dick.
"You would do the same if you were in my fix. Of course there are some I would not dare speak to, for they would tell where they got the information; but those I can trust to keep a still tongue in their heads will be warned, if I can find them."