“I have been told, sir, that you wanted to see me.  I am Peter Cartwright.  I understand that you intend to chastise me for what I said at the camp-meeting.  Well, here I am.”

Andrew Jackson stared at him silently for a moment, as if he did not get the drift of the words.  And then he suddenly burst into a great roar.

“The man who told you that was an infernal fool!  I did say that I wanted to see you—­to meet you.  But I said so because I desired the honor of knowing you, sir.  I wanted to shake the hand of a man like you.  Will you give it to me now, sir?  I shall take it as an honor.  I am proud to know a man who is ready to do his duty in spite of anybody on God’s earth—­as a preacher should be.  A minister of Jesus Christ should love everybody, and fear no mortal man.  Give me your hand again, sir.  By the eternal, if I had a few officers like you, and a well-drilled army, I could take old England!”

With the meeting of the two men’s hands a shout rang out from the crowd now pressing in at the door.  Shout followed shout, till the outcry sounded far through the forest.  It reached the ears of Philip Alston and William Pressley, who were riding slowly toward the court-house.  They spurred their horses forward, wondering what could be the cause of the unusual noise and excitement.  When they had reached the court-house and learned what the shouting meant, Philip Alston smiled in approval.

“Very fine, very patriotic,” he said.

But his real attention was not for the crowd; he cared nothing for its cries.  He was looking at Joe Daviess and Andrew Jackson, the two famous attorneys, who were again absorbed in grave, low-toned consultation.

“Do you happen to know, William, what these distinguished gentlemen are discussing with such interest and gravity?  It must be something of importance.  But of course you know, my dear boy.  You needn’t tell me if it is any matter of state or any sort of a secret.  I asked without thinking.  Pardon me,” said Philip Alston.

He spoke in a low tone of gentle indifference.  There was nothing to indicate that he felt any special interest, but William Pressley answered the question at once, and without reserve.  Nothing pleased that young man more than a chance to display his own first knowledge of political affairs, either local, state, or national.  A single word of politics never failed to fire his ambition, to light that one spark in his cold eyes.  And Philip Alston knew how to strike the flint that lit this spark, as he knew how to do almost anything that he wished to do.  So that William now told him what it was that these two powerful guardians of the public peace and safety had met to discuss.  He also told him everything that the judge had said of his own determination to do his utmost to aid Joe Daviess in carrying out the plans which were to be laid that day.  Philip Alston listened in silence, with his eyes on General Jackson and Kentucky’s attorney-general; looking