“Don’t talk foolishly. I feel if I don’t get you away to-morrow night, I cannot at all.”
“But you—will it endanger you, Joyce?”
“Not at all!”
“But how will you explain my disappearance?”
“Suppose you have been shamming, better than we thought you were, and so you gave us the slip.”
“A right mean trick,” said Calhoun.
“No, a Yankee trick, a real good one. Now listen, Calhoun, and I will tell you all about how I [pg 279]am going to get you away. Some six miles from here a colored man lives whom my father has greatly befriended. He will do anything for me I ask. I shall tell him you are a sick soldier, and for good reasons wish to remain in hiding until you get well.”
“Will he know I am one of Morgan’s men?” asked Calhoun.
“No, he will think you are a Federal soldier. Calhoun, as much as you may hate it, you must don the Union Blue.”
“That would make a spy of me. No, it wouldn’t either, if I kept clear of any military post.”