I am glad to see you looking so well. I see that the loss of that dispatch didn't worry you so much as to make you sick."
"W-h-y why!" stammered the major, choking with rage, "you – you impudent young – " here the major did choke. He could say no more.
Fred rather enjoyed it, and he continued: "And how is my friend Captain Conway? I trust that he was not injured in his hurried exit from the cars the other night."
All the rest of the company looked nonplused, but Morgan, who roared with laughter.
"What does this mean?" sternly asked Mr. Shackelford of Fred.
"It means," answered Fred, "that I got the major's dispatches away from Captain Conway, and thus saved Louisville from a scene of bloodshed and horror. And, Major, you should thank me, for your scheme would have failed anyway. The Union men were too well prepared. I really saved any number of your friends from being killed, and there you sit choking with rage, instead of calling me a good boy."
"Leave the room, Fred," commanded Mr. Shackelford; "that you should insult a guest here in my own house is more than I can imagine."
Bowing, Fred retired, and the company turned to Major Hockoday for an explanation of the extraordinary scene. The major told the story and ended with saying: "I am sorry, Shackelford, that he is your boy. If I were you, I should get him out of the country as soon as possible; he will make you trouble."
"I will settle with him, never fear," replied Mr. Shackelford, grimly.
"Look here, Major," spoke up Morgan; "you are sore because that boy outwitted you, and he did you a good turn, as he said. If your program had been carried out, Louisville would be occupied by Federal troops to-day. Thank him because he pulled the wool over Conway's eyes. Ha! ha! two old duffers fooled by a boy!" and Morgan enjoyed a hearty laugh, in which all but Major Hockoday and Mr. Shackelford joined.
"And, Shackelford," continued Morgan, after he had enjoyed his laugh, "I want you to let that boy alone; he is the smartest boy in Kentucky. I want him with me when I organize my cavalry brigade."
"I am afraid, Morgan," said Breckinridge, "that you will be disappointed in that, though I hope not for Mr. Shackelford's sake. The boy looks to me as if he had a will of his own."
"Oh, he will come around all right," responded Morgan.
After making full arrangements for the meeting to be held in Scott county on the 17th, the company dispersed.
Hours after they had gone Fred heard his father restlessly pacing the floor.
"Poor father!" thought he, "like me, he cannot sleep. I wonder what he will say to me in the morning; but come what may, I must and shall be for the Union."
At the breakfast table Mr. Shackelford was silent until the close of the meal, when he simply said, "Fred, I would like to see you in the library."
Fred bowed, and replied, "I will be there in a few moments, father."
When Fred entered the library, his father was seated at the table writing. There was a look of care on his face, and Fred was startled to see how pale he was.
Pushing aside his writing, he sat for some moments looking at his son in silence. At last he said:
"Fred, you can hardly realize how pained I was last night to hear what I did. I would not have thought it of you. But the past is gone. You are old enough to realize something of the desperate nature of the struggle in which the two sections of the country are engaged. For the past two weeks I have thought much of what was the right thing to do. I love my country; I love and revere the old flag. As long as the slightest hope remained of restoring it as it was, I was for the Union. But this is now hopeless; too much blood has been shed. Neither would the South, if granted her own terms, now go back to a Union she not only hates, but loathes. The North has no lawful right to use coercion. Kentucky, in her sovereign right as a State, has declared for neutrality; and it has been contemptuously ignored by the North. Nelson, a man to be despised by every patriot, has not only organized troops in our midst, but now seeks to have the Federal government arm them. Such true men as Breckinridge, Marshall, Buckner, Morgan, and a host of other loyal Kentuckians have sworn that this shall never be. General Buckner is now in Washington. If he ascertains that the Lincoln government will not respect the neutrality of the State by withdrawing every Federal officer and soldier, he is going to proceed to Richmond and offer his services to the Confederate Government. Once accepted, he will immediately form the State Guards into an army, and turn them over to the Confederacy. Regiments must be formed, and I have been offered the colonelcy of one of these regiments."
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