CHAPTER VIII.
HOUNDS ON THE TRAIL.
"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?"