eet me there; if not, I have a
tongue in my head and a good horse to ride, and I have no fears but that
I shall get through."

"Well, I'll tell you what's a fact," said Lieutenant Odell. "You can go
alone for all of me. There's altogether too much danger in the step.
You'll never get through the lines without a pass, and how are you going
to get it? The first thing you know you will be arrested and shoved into
jail."

"I have thought of that," answered Rodney, calmly, "but I'll take my
chances on it. It's go there or stay home, and I have decided to go.
Good-by, if I don't see you again, and if you hear any of the boys say
that they would like to go with me, send them up to the house."

This was said in the most matter of fact way, as if Rodney were going to
ride to Baton Rouge one day and come back the next; but they all knew
that the parting was for a longer time than that, and each officer
thrust his hand into his pocket to find something that would do for a
keepsake. Odell handed over a big jack-knife with the remark that the
sergeant might find it useful in cutting bacon or breaking up his
hard-tack, so that he could crumb it into his coffee. Percy gave him a
ring which he drew from his own finger, and the captain presented him
with a twenty-dollar gold piece. Then they shook hands with him once
more and saw him ride away.

"It's like parting from a younger brother," said the captain,
sorrowfully. "I don't see how his father can let him go. But he's got
nerve enough to carry him through any scrape he is likely to get into,
and besides he is going among friends."

"But he's got the enemy's lines to pass before he can get among friends,
and that's one thing that worries me," observed the first lieutenant.
"What a determined fellow he is. He ought to make a good soldier."

"Didn't I tell you that that company of Rangers would never amount to a
row of pins?" exclaimed Tom Randolph, when the members rode straggling
into town that afternoon, and reported that their organization had been
knocked into a cocked hat by General Lacey's attempt to muster it into
the service of the Confederacy. "I knew by the way the election went
that it would bust up sooner or later, and I am heartily glad of it. Now
they've got to go into the army, and if I get the second lieutenant's
commission I am working for, perhaps I shall be placed over some of the
fellows who voted against me. So Gray is going to Missouri, is he? Good
riddance