know that he would not be satisfied with simply deserting the company, but would try in all ways to be revenged upon every member of it who had voted against him. While the captain was thinking about it, somebody tried to make matters worse by setting up a loud hiss, and in an instant the sound was carried along the whole length of the line. It wasn't stopped, either, until Rodney Gray stepped to the front.
"Mr. Commander," said he, raising his hand to his cap with a military flourish, "I don't want this position. The officers already chosen have been fairly elected, but I'll vote for Randolph for the next highest office in the gift of the company, if he can be induced to come back."
"Haven't you heard him say that he don't want it and won't take it?" replied the captain. "I think the Rangers know what they are doing. Proceed with the election."
"But, Captain, I don't want to be a clerk," protested Rodney. "I want to be a soldier. Aside from his writing, the orderly has little to do but loaf about camp all the while, keeping an eye on the company property, signing requisitions and drilling awkward squads, and that's a job I don't want. What's more, without any intention of being disrespectful, I'll not take it. There must be some here who want it, and who can do that sort of work as well, if not better than I can. If you think you must put me in for something, let me be a duty sergeant, so that I will have a chance to go on a scout now and then."
So saying the Barrington boy made another flourish with his hand and stepped back to his place in the ranks with military precision.
"Now, Rodney, take that back," said Lieutenant Percy, with most unbecoming familiarity. "You are the only military man in the company, and I don't see how we can get along without you."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Rodney," chimed in Captain Hubbard. "You take the position, and I will promise that you shall go out on a scout as often as you please."
The Barrington boy's face relaxed into a broad grin.
"Captain," said he, "what sort of an organization is this any way – a mob or a military company?"
"Now, what is the use of your asking such a question as that?" demanded the captain, rather sharply.
"Well, then, if it is a military company, I suppose you intend to be governed by military rules, do you not?"
"Of course we do, if we have brains enough to find out what those rules are."
"I have no fears on that score; and when you find out what those rules are, you will see that you have no business to let me go out on a scout as often as I please."
"What's the reason I haven't?" exclaimed the captain. "I command the company, don't I?"
"You certainly do."
"And haven't I a right to do as I please?"
"That depends upon circumstances. Do you intend to remain right here about home?"
"Not by a jugful. We're going to belong to some part of the army, if we have to go clear up to Missouri to find a commander who will take us."
"Then you will find that you can't do as you please. The minute that commander accepts you, he will swear you and all of us into the service."
"After we have been sworn into the service of the State?"
"Certainly."
"I don't believe it," said Captain Hubbard, bluntly. "He wouldn't have any right to do it."
The boy's words raised a chorus of dissent all along the line, and Lieutenant Odell said, as soon as he could make himself heard:
"You are way off the track, Rodney. What did we secede for if it wasn't to prove the doctrine of State Rights? If we are going to give our liberty up to a new government, we might as well have stayed under the old." And all the Rangers uttered a hearty "That's so."
"You'll see," replied Rodney, who was greatly amused by the look of astonishment his words had brought to the faces around him. "A general would look pretty accepting the services of a company he couldn't command, wouldn't he, now?"
"But he could command us," said everybody in the line; and Captain Hubbard added: "I'd promise that we would obey him as promptly and readily as any of his regular troops."
"But that wouldn't satisfy him. He'd want the power to make us obey him, or we might take it into our heads to leave him when things didn't go to suit, just as Randolph and his friends have left us. If we should try any little game like that in the face of the enemy, he might have the last one of us shot."
"What do you think of the prospect, boys?" said the captain, pulling out his handkerchief and mopping his face with it. He was all in the dark and wanted somebody to suggest something.
"Look here, Rodney," said Lieutenant Percy. "If you knew our company was to go up in smoke what did you join it for?"
"I don't believe it is going up in smoke," was the reply. "I certainly hope it isn't, for I am under promise to go into the service, and would rather go with my friends and neighbors than with strangers; but if we are going to bear arms, we've got to have authority from somebody to do it."
"Why, we'll get that from the State of Louisiana," exclaimed the Rangers, almost as one man. "The State is supreme, no one outside of it has a right to command our services, and State Rights will be our battle-cry, if we need one."
"All right," exclaimed Rodney. "I am here to share the fortunes of the company, whatever they may be, but I can't take the position you have so kindly offered me, and I beg you will not urge me further. Give it to some one who wants it, and I will do all I can to help him."
"Well, that's different," said the captain, who seemed to be much relieved. "Fall out and prepare your ballots; and you had better fix 'em all up while you are about it, so that there may be no further delay."
The order to "fall out" was quite unnecessary, for the ranks were pretty well broken before the captain gave it. He allowed them half an hour in which to write out their ballots, and then the line was reformed, after a fashion, and the voting went on; and although the results were in the main satisfactory, there were some long faces among the Rangers.
"Never mind," said Rodney, who had been elected first duty sergeant. "You outsiders may have a chance yet. I'll bet a picayune that if this company sees any service at all, it will not be mustered out with the same officers it has now. Bone your tactics night and day, and then if there is an examination, you will stand as good a chance as anybody. Captain, who is going to commission you?"
"I have been commissioned already; that is to say, I have been authorized by the governor to raise a company of independent cavalry to be mustered into the State service. That is all right, isn't it?"
"I suppose it is," replied the boy; and then he walked off to find his father, thoughtfully pulling his under lip as he went.
"What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Gray, as his son approached the place where he was standing. "Wasn't the election satisfactory? I thought the best men were chosen."
"I wasn't thinking about that," was the answer. "If we are mustered into the service of the State, we must of course be sworn in. This State is a part of the Confederacy; and if the Confederacy calls upon Louisiana for troops then what?"
"Why, then you would have to go. I reckon," replied one of the planters who was talking with his father.
"Yes, I reckon we would: and we'd have to take the oath to support
