"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. He'll have to go in as private, and that will bring him down a peg or two." Yes, Rodney calculated to go in as private if he got in at all, but the prospect did not in the least dampen his ardor. Contrary to his expectations his mother did not say one word to turn him from his purpose; but good Southerner that she was, she heartily condemned the circumstances which, according to her way of thinking, made the parting necessary. "I wish the _Mayflower_ had been sunk fathoms deep in the ocean before she ever touched Plymouth Rock," she said to her husband. "The spirit of intolerance those Puritans brought over here with them is what is taking our boy from us now. No punishment that I can think of would be too severe for them." Rodney lived in hopes that some of the company would ride out to see him during the course of the evening, but midnight came without bringing any of them, and the disappointed Barrington boy, giving his mother the last good-night kiss he imprinted upon her lips for more than fifteen long months, went to bed satisfied that he was to be left to work out his own destiny, with no Mooreville friend to encourage or advise him. He slept but little, but appeared at the breakfast table as fresh as a daisy and--dressed in citizen's clothing. "This is a pill I don't like to swallow," said he, opening his coat and looking down at himself. "I said I wouldn't take off my gray uniform until the South had gained her independence; but I didn't know at the time that I would find it necessary to pass through the enemy's lines. Don't look so sober, mother. I just know I shall come out all right. I'll surely write when I reach St. Louis, and again the very day I find Dick Graham."