's benefit. He retired at an early hour, after his arm
had been bathed and bandaged again (his mother could not keep back her
tears when she saw how inflamed and angry it looked), and left his lamp
burning, as he had done every night since his friend Gifford dropped
that hint about a visit from an organized band of 'longshoremen. Before
he got into bed he unlocked his valise and took from it two things that
his mother knew nothing about,--a brace of heavy revolvers,--which he
placed where he could get his hands upon them at a moment's warning.
"Thank goodness the old flag is above me once more, and not that
secession rag that Beardsley seems to be so proud of," thought Marcy, as
he pounded his pillow into shape and drew the quilts over his shoulders.
"If Colonel Shelby and the rest knew that there are two Union flags
somewhere among these bedclothes, how long do you suppose this house
would stand? If those men are such good rebels, I can't for the life of
me understand why they don't go into the service, instead of staying at
home and making trouble for their neighbors. I should think they would
be ashamed of themselves."

There were plenty of such men all over the South, and Marcy Gray was not
the only one who wondered why they did not hasten to the front, seeing
that they were so very hostile to the Yankees and their sympathizers,
and professed so much zeal for the cause of Southern independence. His
cousin Rodney often asked himself the same question while Dick Graham
was staying at his father's house, waiting for a chance to get across
the Mississippi River. Tom Randolph, who could not forget that Captain
Hubbard's Rangers had refused to give him the office he wanted, was
Rodney's evil genius. Although Tom became in time commander of a small
company of Home Guards, he could be for the old flag or against it, as
circumstances seemed to require. When the Union forces took possession
of Baton Rouge and the gunboats anchored in front of the city, Randolph
sent more than one squad of Yankee cavalry to search Mr. Gray's house
for firearms, and took measures to keep Rodney, Dick Graham, and the
other discharged Confederates in constant trouble; but when General
Breckenridge and his army appeared, and it began to look as though the
rebels were about to drive the Union forces out and take possession of
Baton Rouge and the surrounding country, Tom Randolph gave his scouts
the names of all the Union men in Mooreville and vicini