. "And if you will postpone the drill for
half an hour I will ride into town and attend to it at once. It's the
only thing we can do and keep out of the Confederate army. Dog-gone the
Confederacy. The State is the one I want to serve."

Rodney rode into Mooreville at a gallop, wrote out the dispatch and
stood at the desk while Drummond, the operator, sent it off. Although
the latter looked surprised he did not say anything; but while Rodney
was on his way back to camp, a copy of his dispatch was on its way to
Baton Rouge.

In accordance with Captain Hubbard's programme a secret meeting of the
company was held after the drill was over, but it turned out that the
members were not so strongly in favor of the captain's plan as he and
Rodney thought they were going to be. While the Rangers fully determined
to preserve their independent organization, they were not willing to
give their services to the governor of another State. There was a
dead-lock developed at once; and it was finally decided that the best
thing they could do would be to adjourn until Rodney had received a
reply to his dispatch. Perhaps General Price would not take them, and
that would end the matter. If he would, why then, they could call
another meeting and decide what they would do about it.

The next day their uniforms came up from New Orleans, and on the
afternoon of the day following there was a grand drill and dress parade
commanded by Captain Hubbard in person. The spectators, if we except the
Randolph family, were delighted with it, and Rodney told his father
privately that he had seen many a worse one at the Barrington Academy.
Rodney didn't want to say so out loud, of course, for he was the
drill-master; but it was not long before he discovered that the Rangers
knew whom to thank for their proficiency, and that they fully
appreciated the patient and untiring efforts he had made to bring them
into military form. When the ranks had been broken after dress parade,
and the Rangers and their invited guests thronged into the grove behind
the tents to make an assault upon the well-loaded tables they found
there, the deputy sheriff, the man with the stentorian voice, who was a
private in the company, sprang upon the band-stand, commanded attention,
and afterward shouted for Sergeant Rodney Gray to come forward. As the
boy wonderingly obeyed, the Rangers and their guests closed about the
stand and hemmed it in on all sides. Captain Hubbard had taken up