Rodney The Partisan Part 23

The horseman drew up and turned about just as Rodney's hand was placed upon his shoulder. The greeting was just such a one as any two boys would extend to each other under similar circ.u.mstances, and so we need not say any more about it. Rodney and d.i.c.k Graham were shaking hands at last, and two brothers could not have been more delighted.

"How in the world did you get through St. Louis without being put in jail, and where did you pick him up, captain?" were the questions d.i.c.k asked when he recovered from his surprise. "Lyon is between us and St. Louis, but we manage to get our mail pretty regularly-Heard about Bull Run? Wasn't that a victory though? Fifteen thousand against thirty-five thousand! When we were at school, captain-"

"Where's the regiment?" interrupted the latter. "I am ordered to report to the colonel at once."

"Over there," replied d.i.c.k, sweeping his right arm around the horizon so as to include the whole camp on that side of the street. "Come on, and I will show you the way. When we were at school the Union boys made sport of us rebels because we shouted ourselves hoa.r.s.e over the victory in Charleston Harbor, and declared that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for it. Five thousand men against fifty-one was not a thing to be proud of. But they couldn't say that now if they were here. We won a fair fight on the field of Bull Run, although the enemy outnumbered us more than two to one. I say we are going to repeat the good work right here in Missouri."

"Are you Confederate?" inquired Rodney.

"Not much. I'm State Rights. That's me."

"And you'll not be ordered out of your State?"

"I may be ordered but I won't go. That's me. Seen Jeff Thompson's last proclamation? In it he calls Lyon's Dutchmen Hessians and Tories, and says our first hard work must be to drive them from the State. After that has been done, then we'll decide whether or not we want to join the Confederacy."

"If the Governor of Louisiana had talked that way I would not be here now," said Rodney. "He tried to swear us into the Confederate service against our will, and that broke up the company. I have as much to tell you as you have to tell me, and I propose that we postpone our talking until we can sit down somewhere and have it out with no fear of interruption. Do you suppose I can get into your company?"

"I suppose you can," replied d.i.c.k, with a laugh. "When the captain sees your writing he will make you orderly so quick you will never know it."

"Then he'll never see any of my writing," said Rodney, earnestly. "If you so much as hint to him that I know a pen-point from a pen-holder, I'll never forgive you. Captain Hubbard's men wanted to make me company clerk, but I couldn't see the beauty of it, and so they elected me sergeant. But I don't want any office now. I want to remain a private so that I will have a chance to go with you if you are sent out on a scout. But bear one thing in mind," he added, in a lower tone, "you needn't order me to burn any houses, for I'll not do it."

"I am down on all such lighting myself," replied d.i.c.k, with emphasis. "If we ever go out together I will show you as many as half-a-dozen houses that would be ashes now if it hadn't been for me, and one of them covers the head of one Thomas Percival-when he is at home."

d.i.c.k thought Rodney would be much surprised at this, but he wasn't. All he said was:

"Does Tom know it?"

"I don't suppose he does, or his father, either; but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done something to strengthen the friends.h.i.+p that existed between Tom and myself while we were at Barrington. You will know how hard a time I had in doing any thing for the Percivals when I tell you that Tom is suspected of belonging to a company of Home Guards."

"Suspected, is he?" said Rodney, with a knowing wink. "Is that all you know about him? He's captain of a company he raised himself, and rode all the way alone to St. Louis to ask Lyon if he could join him. He was afraid to trust the mails. He told me that the Vigilance Committees had a way of opening letters from suspected persons, and he didn't want to run any risks."

"Well now, I am beat," said d.i.c.k, who had listened to this revelation with a look of the profoundest astonishment on his face. "But how does it come that you know so much more about him than I do? Have you been corresponding with him?"

"I never heard a word from him from the time I left Barrington until I met him at Cedar Bluff landing in a nest of Confederates. Tom was a prisoner, was known to be Union, accused of being a horse-thief and in a fair way of being hung; but he got out of the sc.r.a.pe somehow, and I hope is safe at home by this time."

"Well, well," repeated d.i.c.k, growing more and more amazed. "So do I hope he is safe at home, and if he got within a hundred miles of Springfield I reckon he is. The country is full of Federal cavalry, and how your squad came through without being molested is more than I can understand. You will find the colonel in this tent, captain," said he, dismounting and drawing some papers from his pocket. "I must report too, for I have been on an errand for him. I'll be out in a minute, Rodney."

d.i.c.k followed, the captain into the colonel's tent, and Rodney sat on his horse and looked around while he awaited his return. He thought of what the captain had said regarding the Continentals at Valley Forge, but did not see that there could be any comparison drawn between the two armies. Price's men seemed to be well clothed, provisions were plenty, and as for their arms, they had an abundance of them such as they were, and a charging enemy would find their double-barrel shotguns bad things to face at close quarters. But a few months later the comparison was a good one. During the "little Moscow retreat," after the battle of Pea Ridge (which Van Dorn's ambition led him to fight contrary to orders), along a route where there were neither roads nor bridges, through a region from which the inhabitants had all fled, leaving the country "so poor that a turkey buzzard would not fly over it," with no train of wagons, or provisions to put in them if there had been, and no tents to shelter them from the cold, biting winds and sleet and snow-when Rodney Gray found himself and companions in this situation he thought of the Continentals, and wondered at the patriotism that kept them in the ranks. But it wasn't patriotism that kept Price's men together. It was fear and nothing else.

But this dark picture was hidden from Rodney's view as he sat there on his horse waiting for his friend d.i.c.k Graham to come out of the colonel's tent. The martial scenes around him, the military order that everywhere prevailed, the companies and regiments drilling in the fields close by, the inspiriting music that came to his ears-these sights and sounds filled him with enthusiasm; and if any one had told him that the time would come when he would think seriously of deserting the army and turning his back upon the cause he had espoused, Rodney Gray would have been thunder struck. But the time came.

CHAPTER XV.

A FULL-FLEDGED PARTISAN.

Having transacted his business with the colonel, d.i.c.k Graham came out of the tent and mounted his horse.

"Of course I had to wait until the captain had made his report," said he, in a suppressed whisper, "and in that way I happened to hear a little about yourself and Tom Barton. I knew enough to keep still in the presence of my superiors, but I did want to ask the captain to say more about Tom Barton. Was it Percival?"

Rodney winked first one eye and then the other and d.i.c.k was answered.

"It's the strangest thing I ever heard of, and I am in a hurry to know all about it, Come on; our company is up at the end of the street. We occupy the post of honor on the right of the line, because we are the only company in the regiment that is fully uniformed. We'll leave our horses at the stable line, and Captain Jones will make a State Guard of you before you know it."

Not to dwell too long upon matters that have little bearing upon our story, it will be enough to say that Rodney was duly presented to Captain Jones, who was informed that he had come all the way from Louisiana to join a partisan company. He was a Barrington boy, well up in military matters, and desired to be sworn into the State service without the loss of time. d.i.c.k was careful not to say too much for fear that he should let out some secrets that Rodney had not yet had opportunity to tell him. Of course the captain was delighted to see the recruit from Louisiana, shook him by the hand as if he had been a younger brother, and sent for an officer to take his descriptive list. He was not required to pa.s.s the surgeon, and the oath he took was to the effect that he would obey Governor Jackson and n.o.body else. This being done d.i.c.k took him off to introduce him to the members of his mess.

"But before I do that," said d.i.c.k, halting just outside the captain's tent and drawing Rodney off on one side, "I want to know just where you stand, and whether or not you have had any reason to change your politics since I last saw you. Are you as good a rebel as you used to be?"

"I never was a rebel," exclaimed Rodney, with some heat. "I am ready to fight for my State at any time; but I deny the right of my Governor to compel me to obey such a man as General Lacey. I didn't want to be sworn into the Confederate army, and that was what sent me up here."

"That's all right," replied d.i.c.k. "I'm glad things turned out that way; otherwise you wouldn't be in my company now. But you don't seem to be as red-hot as you used to be. You say you don't believe in burning out Union men."

"I certainly do not. I believe in fighting the men, but not in abusing the women and children."

"The Union women are like our own-worse than the men," answered d.i.c.k. "That is what I was trying to get at, and I must warn you to be careful how you talk to anybody but me; and I, being an officer of the State Guard, can't stand too much treasonable nonsense," he added, drawing himself up to his full height and scowling fiercely at his friend.

"I suppose not; but I don't see that there is anything treasonable in my saying that I don't believe in making war upon those who cannot defend themselves."

"If some of those defenseless persons had been the means of getting you bushwhacked and your buildings destroyed, you might think differently. But come on, and I will make you acquainted with some of the best among the boys."

There were only two "boys" in the tent into which he was conducted, and they were almost old enough to be gray-headed; and as they were getting ready to go on post, Rodney had little more than time to say he was glad to know them. Then d.i.c.k said he had some writing to do for the captain that would keep him busy for half an hour, and in the meantime Rodney would have to look out for himself.

"Here's a late copy of the Richmond Whig, if you would like to see it," said one of his new messmates, who having thrown a powder horn and bullet pouch over his shoulder, stood holding a long squirrel rifle in one hand while he extended the paper with the other. "There's an editorial on the inside that may interest you. If the man who wrote it had been trying to express the sentiments of this mess he could not have come nearer to them. Good-by for a couple of hours."

When he was left alone in the tent Rodney hunted up the editorial in question and read as follows:

"We are not enough in the secrets of our authorities to specify the day on which Jeff Davis will dine at the White House, and Ben McCulloch take his siesta in General Siegel's gilded tent. We should dislike to produce any disappointment by naming too soon or too early a day; but it will save trouble if the gentlemen will keep themselves in readiness to dislodge at a moment's notice. If they are not smitten, however, with more than judicial blindness, they do not need this warning at our hands. They must know that the measure of their iniquities is fall, and the patience of outraged freedom is exhausted. Among all the brave men from the Rio Grande to the Potomac, and stretching over into insulted, indignant and infuriated Maryland, there is but one word on every lip 'Was.h.i.+ngton'; and one sentiment in every heart vengeance on the tyrants who pollute the capital of the Republic!"

The paper was full of such idle vaporings as these, but they fired Rodney Gray's Southern heart to such an extent that he was almost ready to quarrel with d.i.c.k Graham when the latter came into the tent an hour later, and began discussing the situation in his cool, level-headed way.

"Yes; I have seen the article," said he, when Rodney asked him what he thought of it, "and it is nothing but the veriest bosh."

"d.i.c.k Graham, how dare you?" exclaimed Rodney.

"Oh, I have heard such talk as that before, and right here in this tent from boys who have known me ever since I was knee-high to a duck," replied d.i.c.k. "'The tyrants who pollute the capital of the Republic!' The men who are there, are there because they got the most votes; and in this country the majority rules. That's me. Now mark what I tell you: The majority of the people will say that this Union shall not be broken up."

"Then you believe that might makes right, do you?"

"I don't know whether I do or not. If we have the power, we have the right to rise up and shake off the existing form of government and form one that will suit us better. Abe Lincoln said so in one of his speeches, and that's his language almost word for word. But whether the Northern people, having the power, have the right to make us stay in the Union when we don't want to, is a question that is a little too deep for me."

"They have neither the power nor the right," said Rodney angrily. "But you always were as obstinate as a mule, and we can't agree if we talk till doomsday. Now listen while I tell you what I have been through since I said good-by to you in the Barrington depot."

To repeat what he said would be to write a good portion of this book over again. He told the story pretty nearly as we have tried to tell it, with this difference: He touched very lightly upon the courage he had displayed and the risk he had run in helping Tom Percival out of the corn-crib in the wood-cutters' camp, although he was loud in his praises of Tom's coolness and bravery. d.i.c.k Graham found it hard to believe some parts of the narrative.

"So Tom wasn't satisfied with risking his neck by going to St. Louis to see Lyon, but had to come back through Iron and St. Francois counties and try to raise another company of Home Guards there. He's either all pluck or else plum crazy."

"He's got a straight head on his shoulders; I'll bear witness to that," replied Rodney. "What do you suppose he will do at home? Where's his company?"