CHAPTER I.
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."
"Well, Cap'n Randolph, if that suits you any better; though it's mighty little you ever done to deserve the title. When this company of ourn was first got up didn't you say that we was going to make all the Union men about here hunt their holes?"
"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?