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 a position there, and when Rodney halted in front of him and took off his cap, the latter began a speech, thanking the young sergeant for what he had done for the company, and begging him to accept a small token of their respect and esteem. "Take it, friend Rodney," said the captain, in conclusion. "Keep it to remind you of the pure gold of our friendship which shall never know alloy. And while we sincerely trust that it may never be drawn except upon peaceful occasions of ceremony, we are sure you will not permit it to remain idle in its scabbard while the flag of our Young Republic is in danger, or your good right arm retains the power to wield it." The captain stepped back, and the thoroughly astonished Rodney stood holding in his hands an elegant cavalry sabre. He stared hard at it, and then he looked at the expectant crowd around the band-stand. "Speech, speech!" yelled the Rangers. But the usually self-possessed Barrington boy was past speech-making now. He managed to mumble a few words of thanks, got to the ground somehow and mingled with the crowd as quickly as possible. "How very surprised he is," sneered Tom Randolph, who told himself regretfully that a sword like that might have been presented to him if he had only remained with the company. "I will bet my horse against his that he knew a week ago that he was going to get it." Rodney waited four days before he received a reply to the dispatch he sent to Dick Graham's father, and seeing that the authorities had assumed control of the wires, and the operator at Mooreville was a government spy, it was rather singular that he got it at all. It ran as follows: "Price will accept. Company officers and independent organization to remain the same."