"The boys are coming!" cried one of his friends, and stepped out through the window upon a balcony. "Wait till after I call for the cheers, Arba!" he called back. "Step out when they strike up Hail to the Chief."

"This will make the Everett bunch sit up and take notice," said a man at Harlan's elbow. "There'll be a thousand men in line behind that band when she swings into the square, here! And a Spinney badge on every one of 'em!"

He was challenged promptly. The corridor was full of Everett men.

"Ten dollars to a drink that your man Spinney pays for the band! And when a band starts up street you can get every yag, vag, and jag in the city to trail it! You can't fool doubtful delegates that way, Seth! Go hang your badges on a hickory limb. They're only good to scare crows. You can't scare us!"

This speaker heard Harlan making inquiries for his men.

"The Colonel is down in the office," was his information, "over in the farther corner, behind one of those palms, telling war stories to Herbert Linton. Just came past 'em."

It seemed a rather happy augury to Harlan; that out of that throng his two men should have paired themselves struck him as an interesting coincidence. He found them, and quietly delivered his message.

Colonel Wadsworth stood up, gaunt, straight, twisting his sparse imperial, and blinking a bit doubtfully at the messenger. But Linton was not so much at a loss for reasons. He was an earnest young man with slow, illuminating smile.

"Has the committee seen new light regarding my two planks, Mr. Thornton?" he asked; and without waiting for answer, he led the way. The three were admitted at the private door.

United States Senator Pownal was there, evidently newly arrived from the committee-room.

The band was just coming into the square under their windows.

Its deafening clamor beat in echoes between the high buildings, the mob was roaring huzzas. The bedlam blocked conversation.

Thelismer Thornton pulled down the windows and twitched the curtains together.

"Let 'em hoorah," he said. "With Spinney's band on tap, any fellows that try to listen at our keyholes will be bothered. I'm glad his band is out there. Now, gentlemen, I have something to say to you."

They listened to him, all standing. Only General Waymouth kept his seat, his head tipped back, his finger-tips together.

The Duke was brief, but he was cogent and he was emphatic. He explained what he had done and why he had done it. He was frank and free with that selected few. He delicately made known the General's reluctance, but stated in his behalf his willingness to step into the breach at this eleventh hour for the sake of his party. Then Thornton went first to Colonel Wadsworth, drew him along to Linton, and told them what their party asked of them.

Senator Pownal did not wait for this explanation to be finished. He was the first to reach General Waymouth with congratulations and endorsement.

"You cannot understand how immensely relieved I am to know this plan," he declared. "I have been here only a few hours, but I was just beginning to realize what the situation had developed into. I hadn't the proper perspective at Washington. Thornton is right. We're on the edge of an upheaval in this State; I'm afraid Everett would have plunged us straight into it."

Thornton had made no mistake in his selection of advocates. Colonel Wadsworth rushed to the chair of his old commander, and Linton, with a young man's loyal zeal, followed. The lawyer came back to Harlan, his eyes shining.

"We've got a man to follow now, Mr. Thornton, not a political effigy nor a howl on two legs! I was down there hiding myself. I hadn't stomach for either of the others."

There had been a brief silence outside. Then the band struck up Hail to the Chief, and the uproar broke out once more.

"That's our tune, and they don't know it yet!" cried the Senator, gayly. "Let's have the benefit of that to spice our little celebration, now and here!" He started for the window to open it, but General Waymouth put out his hand and checked him. He had stood up to receive their handclasps.

"One moment, Senator," he entreated. "I have a word to say for myself now. You have just come from Room 40. Have they finished drafting the platform?"

"It's in shape—practically so."

"Will you send for it?"

The Duke nodded to Harlan, and the young man arose. "Tell Wasgatt I want him to come down here with the resolutions," he directed.

And while he was gone there was no conversation in the parlor. It might have been because the band was playing too loudly; it might have been because General Waymouth's visage, grave, stern, almost forbidding, rather dampened the recent cordiality of the gathering.



CHAPTER XVI

THE HANDS ARE DEALT

When Committeeman Wasgatt came into the room in tow of Harlan Thornton he found silence prevailing there. It was silence that was marked by a little restraint. The band outside was quiet now. A human voice was bellowing. It was Arba Spinney's voice—a voice without words.

Wasgatt, short, stout, habitually pop-eyed and nervous, clutched his papers in one hand and held his eyeglasses at arm's-length in the other.

The others were in their chairs now, ranged about the sides of the room. The General, alone, was standing near the table. Wasgatt turned to him after a rapid scrutiny of the make-up of the party.

"I'd like to have the resolutions read," remarked the General, quietly.

"Go ahead, Wasgatt," commanded Presson; and the committeeman advanced to the table under the chandelier and began to read.

The preamble was after the usual stereotyped form; the first sections endorsed the cardinal principles of the party, and Mr. Wasgatt, getting into the spirit of the thing, began to deliver the rounded periods sonorously. General Waymouth leaned slightly over the table, propping himself on the knuckles of his one hand. The light flowed down upon his silvery hair, his features were set in the intentness of listening.

"'We view without favor the demagogic attempts to throttle enterprise, check the proper development of our State, lock up the natural resources away from the fostering hands of commerce and labor, thereby preventing the establishment of industries that will extend their beneficent influence to the workingman, dependent upon his daily wage.'"

"One moment, Wasgatt!" The General tapped a knuckle on the table, and the reader waited.

Waymouth turned his gaze full upon the Senator when he spoke.

"Gentlemen, understand me aright at the start. I'm not here to try to dictate. That would be presumptuous in me, for I am not yet your candidate. To-morrow is not here."

Wasgatt's pop-eyes protruded still more. He stared from man to man, and it became necessary for Thelismer Thornton to take one more into the secret. He did it a bit ungraciously. He had not expected the General to be so blunt and precipitate. The candidate waited patiently until the brief explanation was concluded and Wasgatt had pledged fidelity.

"I want you fully to understand my spirit in this," went on the General. "We'll be honest with each other; we know that the floor of a convention is not the place to discuss the platform frankly; I don't want to wash our linen in public. We'll settle it now between ourselves. That plank, there, comes out of the platform if you expect me to stand on it."

The Senator, challenged by his eyes, spoke.

"You don't take exceptions to honest efforts to develop our State, do you, General Waymouth?"

"I do not. But that proposition, no matter how good it sounds, is the sugar-coated preface to an attempt to steal the undeveloped water-powers of this State."

The Senator's fat neck reddened.

"You may be inclined to modify that rather rash statement, General Waymouth, when I tell you that I suggested the insertion of that resolution."

"I recognized it as yours, Senator. Some time ago my bankers gave me the personnel of the group behind the Universal Development Company. In making my statement, I understand perfectly what legislation that resolution is leading up to."

"Vard," broke in the Duke, conciliatingly, "don't take so much for granted. Why, there are folks suspicious enough to accuse Saint Peter of starting Lent and ticking off Fridays from the meat programme simply because he was in the fish business. Let's not get to fussing about a set of convention resolutions. They're mostly wind, anyway."

But General Waymouth was not appeased.

"I know what resolutions stand for—how much and how little. I'm taking this occasion, gentlemen, to set myself right with you. That resolution will do for a text! I want no taunts later that I led you on into a trap."

He struck the table with the flat of his hand.

"I'm laying my cards face up. Here's my hand! I halt right here on that resolution. I'm certain I know what it means, no matter how it sounds. I'm willing to take my hat and walk out right now. But if I stay—if you promise to nominate me—I propose to have the saying of what kind of a Governor I shall be!"

"That's rather blunt talk to make to gentlemen," protested the Senator, showing a spark of ire.

"At my age there isn't time to make long speeches to shade the facts," returned General Waymouth. He was calm but intensely in earnest.

"Then you are all for reform—one of the new reformers, eh?" inquired the Senator. He cast a look of reproach at Thornton, as though that trusted manager had loosed a tiger on their defenceless party.

The General smiled—smiled so sweetly that he almost disarmed their resentment.

"No, the Arba Spinneys of this State are the reformers. I'm not under salary to run round and make disturbances in settled order. I'm not a bigot with a single idea, nor a fanatic insisting that the world ought to follow the diet that my dyspepsia imposes upon me. I'm merely an old man, gentlemen, who has got past a lot of the follies of youth and the passions of manhood, and has had a chance to reflect for a few years. I have not asked to return to public life. But if I do return, if you put power into my hands, I propose to render unto the people the things that are the people's, and that term includes every man in this room. It is not a programme that should alarm honest gentlemen!"

There was appeal in the tone—there was a hint of rebuke in that final sentence that troubled the conscience of even Senator Pownal. Thelismer Thornton was in a chair close to him.

"Don't let a few little cranky notions about a platform scare you," he mumbled in the Senator's ear. "You know Vard Waymouth as well as I do. He's safe and all right. Give him his head. You don't want Spinney, do you?"

"But that was devilish insulting," growled Pownal.

"Tipping backward a little, trying to stand straight, that's all. Blast it, a Governor can't run the State. What are you afraid of? You've got a lobby and a legislature, haven't you?"

If Waymouth noticed this sotto voce conference he gave no sign.

"General," said Pownal, getting hold of himself manfully, even desperately, "the resolution is not essential. I fear you misunderstand what it really means, but we'll not discuss it now. I withdraw it."

The General bowed acknowledgment, and signed to Wasgatt to resume.

"'We believe in dividing the burden of taxation equitably and justly, and will bend our efforts to that end.'"

"That is simply empty vaporing!" cried the General. "And it has been in every platform for twenty years without meaning anything. The platform that I stand on this year must declare for a non-partisan tax commission, empowered to investigate conditions in this State—wild lands, corporations, and all—and report as a basis for new legislation."

In the silence that ensued they could hear Arba Spinney continuing his harangue.

"Gentlemen, you've got to do something in this party to stop the mouths of him and men like him," declared the General, solemnly. "You may make up your minds that you've either got to pay in money, or else you'll pay in votes that mean the bankruptcy of the party."

"I suppose you have the resolution all drawn," suggested Thelismer Thornton, dryly.

"I have, and drawn according to good constitutional law," replied the General. He drew the paper from his breast-pocket.

"Incorporate it, Wasgatt, ready for the final draft, and we'll all go over the thing to-morrow morning." The Duke was grimly laconic. That resolution whacked his pet interests.

Senator Pownal gave the proposer of this prompt surrender a glance of mutual sympathy out of the corner of his eye, but the Duke remained imperturbable. Wasgatt received the paper and went on.

"'We reaffirm our belief in the principle of the prohibition of the liquor traffic, and pledge our earnest efforts to promote temperance.'"

Across the corridor revellers were bawling over and over in chorus:

"'Let's take a drink, Let's take it now, God only knows how dry I am!'"

"That's a good thing to reaffirm—I don't mean the song they're singing in that room across there! It's a good thing to pledge ourselves to promote temperance," said the General, "but that isn't the point at issue. I have another plank that I've written for our platform."

He drew a second paper from his pocket.

"Gentlemen, some politicians, more than half a century ago, simply to use a temperance movement for bait in a political campaign, dragged into our party a moral, social, and economic question that belongs to the whole people—not merely to us as a party. Let the people, when the right time comes and they decide the matter differently, make a law that the majority desires and will stand behind. Just now we have in our constitution a law that forbids the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in this State. There is no option in the matter. Just so long as our party, the dominant political power, uses that option, it is in disgrace with all decent men. I—"

There was a knock at the door—the private door.

Harlan started up, but his grandfather pulled him back into his chair.

"Go on, General," he said.

"I have drawn a resolution. Here it is: 'As a party, we deplore the fact that temperance, through the so-called prohibitory law, has become a matter of politics, its football to the extent that holders of public office, sworn to enforce the laws, turn from that enforcement in order to cater to public opinion which otherwise might deprive them of office. We declare against this intolerable system of protection of lawbreakers. Until the people shall repeal the law, we, the dominant party of the State and in control of enforcement, do pledge ourselves to faithfully enforce it, employing such law as we now have and invoking new powers through the legislature to assist us, so long as the prohibitory law shall remain in our constitution.'"

It was now Chairman Presson's turn to look uncomfortable.

"Look here, Vard," exploded Thornton, "I've been pretty patient while you've been amputating a few fingers and toes of the Republican party of this State, but I'll be damned if I propose to see you cut its throat."

There was fresh knocking at the door, but the group within the parlor had enough to think about just then without entertaining callers.

"Now you're talking simply about yourselves and your office-holders and your dirty profits. You're calling that mess of nasty confederacy 'Our Party,'" declared General Waymouth, passionately. "When honesty kills a party, let it die—let its men get out and organize another one. But I tell you, you can't kill it by being honest, Thelismer. The trouble is you're sitting here and building for to-night—for to-morrow. I'm a Republican—you can't take that name away from me. But the badge doesn't belong on men who are using that name to cover up a rum-selling business."

Chairman Presson was livid. He leaped from his chair and drove his fist down on the table,

"Now you're insulting me personally!" he shouted.

"I deal in no personalities, sir. So long as I hide myself under the name of Republican and allow this thing to go on as it's going, I'm in the traffic myself; and I don't propose to continue in it—not when I have power placed in my hands."

"By the eternal gods, you won't have the power placed there!" roared the chairman of the State Committee.

Now some one called to them from outside the door, repeating the rapping.

"When you say that, you're confessing that the Republican party is a sneak, Presson," declared the General.

The Duke came along to the table. He ticked his forefinger against the paper that Waymouth was holding.

"Vard, you're pledging yourself in advance of election to the most rabid of the prohibition fanatics."

"I'm pledging myself to obey the one State law that occupies the most space in public attention, causes the most discussion, makes the most row. It's a damnable bloodsucker to be hitched on to any political party! But it's on ours, and I'm going to grab it with both hands!"

"Hold a proxy from the ramrodders, eh?" sneered the State chairman, thoroughly a rebel.

"No, nor from the State rumsellers. If the people of his State want to have rum sold, let 'em vote to have it sold. But as it now stands, they can't enlist me to head the lawbreakers and shield the lawbreaking. I'm through playing the hypocrite!"

"We've got to set ourselves above petty bickerings and personal differences," interposed the Senator, cracking the party whip. "I'm a Republican, first of all!"

"Talk sense, Pownal!" snapped the General, impatiently. "This isn't a political rally. We're grown men and friends that can talk plain. His principles make a Republican—or ought to—not his protestations! And establishing a system of low license and sheriff-made local option under a prohibitory law is unprincipled, and you know it!"

Thelismer Thornton, god of that particular machine that was then grinding so ominously and rattling so badly, felt that he needed a few moments in which to mend belts and adjust cogs. He wanted an opportunity to think a little while. He had discovered a new Waymouth all of a sudden. He wanted to get acquainted with him. He wished to find out whether he would be really as dangerous as his astonishing threats indicated.

The persistent man at the door was now clamorous. The Duke strode that way and flung it open. Whoever it might be, the interruption would give him time to think, to plan, to investigate.

The intruder was the Hon. David Everett. He stepped in, and Thornton relocked the door after him.

Mr. Everett was not amiable. His little eyes snapped from face to face suspiciously. It was immediately and perfectly plain to him that he had forced admission to a conference that had not expected him, did not want him, and was embarrassed at finding him present. In the state of mind they were in, the men in that room would have glowered at any one. Everett detected something more than mere personal resentment at his intrusion—he sniffed a plot against him. There was no hand outstretched to him, no welcome, no explanation offered why these leaders of the party had met thus without intimation to him that anything was afoot. Choleric red suffused his face—it had been gray with passion when he entered, because a corridor filled with curious men is not a happy arena for a candidate shut out of committee headquarters.

He realized that he had been a spectacle inciting interest and some amusement while he was hammering on the door.

One object of the Duke had been attained when he admitted Everett—the wrangling ceased. But the embarrassment was intensified. The situation was more complex.

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, if I am interrupting serious business," began Everett, intending to force some sort of explanation.

He waited. No one spoke. The others were waiting, too.

The candidate looked from one to the other, and then surveyed Wasgatt and the papers he was clutching. He eyed General Waymouth with much interest and some surprise. He had not been informed of that gentleman's presence in the hotel. The General returned the gaze with serenity, creasing his sheet of manuscript on the table with his thin fingers.

"I expected to be called in when you were ready to go over the platform," continued Everett, sourly. "I'm supposed to know as early as any one, I presume, what it is I'm going to stand on."

Thelismer Thornton decided that it was up to him to speak. He leaned against the table, half sitting on it, and swung his foot.

"You have a perfect right, Dave, to inquire about any platform that you're going to stand on. And when we get your platform ready for you we'll call you in and submit it. But allow me to remind you that you haven't been nominated yet." The band was blaring again outside. "The convention is yet to be held, and has yet to declare its platform."

"I don't expect you to call Arba Spinney in here and consult with him—if that's what your hints mean. But there's no need of your using that 'round-the-barn talk with me, Thelismer. You know that so far as the real Republican party is concerned Spinney is an outsider; I'm the logical candidate, and I demand to be taken into the conference. I don't recognize that there are two Republican candidates before the convention."

"I do," said the Duke, firmly and with significance. He was preparing to resent this autocratic manner.

"Well, I don't!" cried the State chairman. Secretly he had been offended by Thornton's high-handed assumption of control, ever since their talk on the morning after the Fort Canibas caucus. He had promptly recognized the political sagacity of the old man's plan. In his fear of the Spinney agitation—in his apprehension lest all control should be wrested from his faction of the party—he had been eager to compromise on General Waymouth, hoping that he would prove to be as amenable to party reason as he knew Everett already was. But this intractable old Spartan, with his dictation of party principles that meant the loss of policy, power, and profits, had angered him to his marrow. He was ready to declare himself now, Thornton or mo Thornton. He turned on the Duke.

"Perhaps you can lick me—that's the only way you can get it!" he declared. "But you needn't expect me to stand here and grin and hand it over."

Thornton stared at him understandingly, accepting the challenge.

"There was a man up our way, Luke, who fought two highway robbers a whole hour, and when they had finally torn his clothes all off him, he only had two cents in his pockets. He told the robbers, then, that he hadn't fought to save his two cents, but because he didn't want his financial condition revealed."

Candidate Everett was finding this conversation hard to follow.

"There's something here that isn't on the level, and I suspected it the minute I came into this room. Presson, is the State Committee behind me?"

"It is, and it's behind you to stay," declared the chairman. Again he turned to Thornton.

"It's up to you, now, whether Arba Spinney gets the nomination or not. If you keep on and split us, he gets it; but I shall make it mighty plain to the boys as to whose fault it was, Thelismer."

"What's all this about?" demanded Everett.

Presson hesitated only a moment.

"There was a movement on inside the party to run General Waymouth as a compromise candidate. It has been talked over. I declare myself now. I'm against it. The State Committee stands for you, Everett!"

The candidate revolved slowly on his heels in order to study the faces of all of them. He did not find much enthusiasm to back up Presson's declaration. He realized that he was in the company of those who had been plotting to shelve him, and he had the wit to understand that only their quarrel over some issue had availed to save him from being knifed.

His temper got away from him.

"You've held your nose up pretty high in this world, General Waymouth! Do you call a trick to steal my nomination away from me at the last moment gentlemanly or decent? I've put in my time and my money and my efforts. I've made a campaign. And I've waited for this!"

"You needn't insult the General in that fashion, Dave," broke in Thornton. "Address your talk to me. I'm responsible."

"I think I'm the one that is responsible at this stage," insisted General Waymouth. "I'll talk to you, Mr. Everett, if you please. You addressed me. Any Republican in this State is entitled to seek nomination as Governor. It is a worthy and proper ambition. It is an honor that belongs to the people. It isn't a heritage to be passed on from one bunch of politicians to another. It isn't to be bought and bartered. I realize that precedent has given you that impression. But it's a pernicious precedent. It's time to do away with it. That's why I'm here to-night, dipping into slime that I hoped never to be soiled with again. I've been frank with these other gentlemen. I'm going to be frank with you, Mr. Everett. I know you stand for The System. I don't have to tell you what that is. You propose to continue the nullification programme, bar-rooms tolerated on payment of fines, tax reform slicked over, water powers and other State resources peddled out to favorites. It's useless to deny. We've all been in politics together too many years."

Mr. Everett did not deny. It was too intimate a gathering for that.

"This is not the way I'd like to be called to the Governor's chair of my State," went on the General, "but it's the way of politics. I've got to meet you on the politician's level, so far as securing the nomination goes. But I stand here and tell you, Mr. Everett"—he took two steps forward and stood close to the other candidate, and his voice rose—"that I can be a better Governor of this State than you—in the sort of days that are on us now. This is not egotism—it's truth. I say it because I know you and the men behind you as well as I know myself."

"It's a sneak trick, just the same!" shouted Everett.

"So are many tricks in politics—and, God help me, I'm back in politics!" returned the General. He looked them over there in the room, from face to face and eye to eye. "You cannot accuse me of vanity, self-seeking, or ambition at my age, gentlemen. I've been Governor of this State once. I didn't enjoy the experience. I'm going into this thing again simply because I believe that I can put some honesty into public affairs. This State is calling for it. And that object justifies me in what I'm doing. I am a candidate!"

"By ——!" roared Everett, furious, realizing how this candidacy threatened his hopes, "run if you want to. But I'll see to it that these delegates know how you're running—cutting under a man that's made an honest canvass!" He started for the door, tossing his arms above his head—a politician beginning to run amuck.

Presson grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Don't be a lunatic, Dave," he buzzed in his ear. "If you go to advertising this around the hotel to-night you'll be giving Spinney the tip and starting Waymouth's boom for him. Damn it, you want to keep your teeth shut tight and your tongue behind them! There'll be no blabbers go out of this room—I'll see to that! I'll put a dozen members of the State Committee at work on the delegates to-night." He was walking Everett toward the door, getting him out of earshot of the others. "Weymouth has got a platform there that sounds as though it was drawn up by the House Committee of Paradise. He's got to be licked—great Judas, he's got to be licked! I've got five thousand that the liquor crowd has sent into the State for the campaign, but this is the place to use it—right here now! And it'll be used. Don't you worry, Dave! And keep your mouth shut!"

It was a colloquy that no one else in the room heard—Everett putting in suggestions as the chairman whispered hoarsely in his ear. Harlan Thornton, looking on, guessed what it might be. Linton, at his side, ironically hinted at the possibilities of that hurried conference in the corner. Senator Pownal walked about the room, chewing his short beard and incapable of a word—for his re-election came before the next legislature, and to jump the wrong way now in the gubernatorial matter was political suicide.

Thelismer Thornton remained in his place on the corner of the table, staring reflectively at General Waymouth.

Presson ended his whispered exhortations with a rather savage reference to the manner in which the Duke had involved the campaign. Everett shot a baleful glance at the man who had so cold-bloodedly planned his undoing.

"Look here, Thornton," he called out, as he started for the door, "you and I will have our reckoning later. We use old horses for fox bait up our way, too, but we always make sure that the horses are dead first." He went out and slammed the door.

Thornton did not turn his head. He kept his eyes on Waymouth.

"Vard," he said, "I reckon I haven't been keeping my political charts up to date. I had you down as a peninsula, jutting out some from the Republican party, but still hitched on to it. I find you're an island, standing all by yourself, and with pretty rocky shores."

"Perhaps so," admitted the General.

"This has been a sort of a heart-to-heart meeting here to-night. In the general honesty I'll be honest myself. I can't support you."

"Then you lack honesty."

"No, but your scheme of honesty takes you right into the king-row of the ramrodders, and I can't train with the bunch that will flock to you. Your theory is good—but the practice will break your heart just as sure as God hasn't made humans perfect! You'll be up against it! You're going to test man to the limit of his professions—and it isn't a safe operation, if you want to come out with any of your ideals left unsmashed. If you start on that road you'll have to travel it without me."

"Well, there's a little common sense left in the Republican party," snapped Presson. "General Waymouth, you've had considerable many honors in your life, and the party gave 'em to you. That calls for some gratitude. You can show it by keeping your hands off this thing."

"That would have been an argument once, when I was a wheel-horse with my political blinders on; it has been an argument that has kept a good many decent men from doing their duty. It will not work with me now." He put his folded paper into his pocket, and reached and took the other document that he had handed to Wasgatt earlier in the evening. "I'll not disfigure the perfect structure of your platform now, Presson, but I'll see how these sound from the floor of the convention, in spite of your resolutions to shut off free speech! Good-night, gentlemen." He turned to leave, still serene with the poise of one who has experienced all and is prepared for all. "I used to have pretty good luck playing a lone hand in our old card-playing days, Thelismer. I'll see what I can do in politics."

"General Waymouth, have you a few moments to give me if I come to your room now?" inquired Harlan Thornton. "I want to offer my services!"

"I'll join the party too, if I may!" suggested Linton.

Colonel Wadsworth was twisting his imperial with one hand and fingering his Loyal Legion button with the other.

"I'm not the kind that waits for a draft, General," he said. "I didn't in '61. I volunteer now."

General Waymouth smiled, bowed the three ahead of him through the door of the parlor, and softly closed it behind himself and his little party.

"Well, Thelismer," raved the State chairman, "you can certainly take rank, at your time of life and after all you've been through, as a top-notch hell of a politician. You start out to run a State campaign, and you wind up by not being able to run even your grandson!"

"What I started running seems to be still running," said the old man, undisturbed by the attack.

"And it's costing the Republican party something, this mix-up," Presson went on.

"You think it looks expensive, taking the thing right now at apparent face value?"

"Look here! I don't relish humor—not now! I'm not in a humorous mood. You can see what it's costing—blast that infernal band!"

Mr. Spinney's serenaders had not had their fill of music. There was din outside. The tune, "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night," won a grunt of approval from Mr. Wasgatt, still holding his documents, more pop-eyed than ever.

"Pretty expensive, eh?" said the Duke, lifting his knee between his hands and leaning back on the table. "You heard about—"

"I don't want any more of your cussed stories! Not to-night!" Presson rushed out. He went into the main parlor, where the members of the State Committee were in informal session.

Wasgatt was left with the Duke, and the latter fixed him with benevolent gaze.

"Old Zavanna Dodge, up our way, got to courting two old maids, trying to make up his mind which he'd take—and the one he didn't take sued him for breach o' promise. After Zavanna put in his evidence in court, he sat across from the court-house in the tavern window, waiting for the arguments to be made and the case to be decided. Toward night Squire Enfield, his lawyer, came across. 'How did she end out?' says Zavanna. 'Agin ye—for eight hundred,' says the Squire. 'Pretty expensive, Zav!' Zavanna tucked a spill of whisker between his lips and chewed on it and rocked for a little while. 'Unh huh!' says he, figuring it over. And then he spoke up cheerful: 'Well, Squire, I reckon there's that much difference between the two women.'"

Wasgatt chuckled.

"The point to that is—but no matter! It was to Luke that I was going to show the point."

The old man got his hat from the window-sill and trudged toward the private door, saying, partly to Wasgatt, partly to himself: "I reckon I'll go to bed! Just at this minute the campaign doesn't seem to be needing my help."



CHAPTER XVII

THE ODD TRICK

Thelismer Thornton was one of the first to stir next morning in the big hotel. All night roisterers had flanked his room, there had been the buzz of eager argument overhead, riot of dispute below, and continual thudding of hurrying feet in the corridors. He had gone to sleep realizing that the hive was in a state of upheaval extraordinary, but he slept calmly in spite of it, and woke refreshed.

He picked his way past cots in the corridors. Men were snoring there.

His grandson had not returned to their apartments. But the Duke divined his whereabouts. He had ascertained by the house telephone the number of Linton's room. He tried the door when he arrived there. It was not locked. He entered. Linton was asleep on the bed. Harlan was on a cot. They had taken off only their coats and waistcoats. They did not wake when he came in. He pulled a chair to the centre of the room and sat astride it, his arms on its back. In a few moments both sleepers woke, stirring under his intent regard. They sat up and returned his gaze.

"Well, my boys, what's the programme?" he inquired, pleasantly.

Heavy with sleep, perturbed, a bit apprehensive, neither answered.

"You didn't come back to your room last night, Harlan. You weren't afraid of this old chap, were you? Didn't think I'd be running around the room on all fours, eh, or climb the wall, or growl and try to bite you?"

"I didn't want to disturb you, and Mr. Linton and I wanted to talk after we left General Waymouth," said Harlan.

"It's all right if you weren't afraid of me, my boy. We can't afford to have politics put us in that state of mind. Now, own up! You thought I'd pitch in and pull you over to the machine—you were afraid of that, now, weren't you?"

"To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any argument with you, grandfather, but I wasn't afraid you'd convert me. You couldn't do that."

"Bub, 'politics before friendship' is all right for a code. I practice that myself, but it hurts me to have you put politics before relationship—the kind that's between us."

"Grandfather," replied the young man, firmly, "you remember that you told me you were going to put me into politics right. I consider that you've done so. I'm going to stay where you put me."

"Oh, you mean one thing and I mean another, my boy, as matters stand just now. You're in wrong. A man isn't in right when he's playing on the losing end."

"I stay where you put me," insisted Harlan, doggedly. "I'm with General Waymouth."

"General Waymouth was a winner till he committed hari-kari there last night. He had Luke's machine, and he had my scheme. He kicked over the machine, and the scheme won't work now; it could have been snapped through, but it can't be bulled through—not with the bunch forewarned and on the lookout. Your political chances with Vard Waymouth, Harlan, don't amount to that!" He clicked his finger smartly above his head. "You may as well go back up-country and boss the Quedaws."

"And yet you know that General Waymouth is right, Mr. Thornton," broke in Linton, pausing in lacing his shoes. "There's no chance for argument about that. Why is it the big men of this State—men like you, that have the influence to set things straight—won't back the man that's honest and right?"

"Linton, that's the kind of a question that's asked by the man whose experience in practical politics is limited to a term on the School Board and the ownership of a subscription edition of American Statesmen, bound in half morocco. I'll tell you why we don't: we're dealing with conditions, not theories. The chap who writes for the 'Kickers' Column' in the newspapers can tell you all about how politics should be run, but that's the only privilege he ever gets. It's the chap who keeps still and runs the politics that gets what's to be got out of it. And that's because mankind wants what it wants, and not what it says it wants."

He went to the window, snapped up the shade, and let the morning light flood the room.

"Wake up, my boys! Dreams are rosy—I've had 'em myself. But they don't buy the breakfast next morning. Martyrs get a devil of a reputation after they're dead. It doesn't do 'em a mite of good, not as human beings. As long as you're taking the curse that belongs with a human being, get some of the good, too. I tried to operate on a different plan long ago—about the time I had the dreams—but I had to give it up if I was to get anything out of life. Vard Waymouth can't build over the human nature in this State. I've had to drop him. I hadn't realized he was in such a bad way. Get aboard with the winners this trip! Then at least you can be in the swim—you can find some good to do on the side, and be able to do it. But you won't amount to anything sitting on the bank and bellowing."

The vigils of the night had fortified their faith, the loyalty of youth was in them, and they were the disciples of one who had enlisted their enthusiasm. Linton, however, was less assertive than Harlan. The Duke did not lose his patience.

"Boys," he said, at the end of his exhortations, "I see that you've got to have your little lesson (I'll have to be going now, for I've a few things to attend to), and I'll tell you frankly I propose to make that lesson a lasting one."

A few hours later the young men went in to breakfast together. The early trains had brought other delegates and visitors. The great room was crowded with a chattering throng. The head waiter intercepted them; he seemed to be waiting for them. They followed obediently, and he led them to an alcove.

Here a breakfast-party was already installed.

Miss Presson was first to greet them, giving a hand to each—radiant, fresh, and altogether charming in her tailored perfection.

"We left word at the door," she smiled, "for I wanted to behold you before the blood and dust of the arena settled over all."

Mrs. Presson and her ladies were cordial. They did not seem to remark that the State chairman kept his seat and was brusque in his greeting. Political abstraction excused general disregard to conventions among the men-folks that morning. The Duke was there. He patronized them with a particularly amiable smile.

"May I?" asked Linton, touching the chair next Madeleine.

"Yes," said the girl. "You know, Herbert and I are very old friends, Mr. Thornton." There was a hint of apology to Harlan behind the brilliant smile she gave him. He had moved toward the chair. He flushed when he realized that he felt a queer sense of hurt at her choice. It was another new experience for him who had made the woods his mistress—a woman had chosen another, slighting him. As he took his seat beside his grandfather he was angry at himself—at the sudden boyish pique he felt. He had not been conscious till then that he had been interested especially in Madeleine Presson. It needed the presence of this other young man, selected over his head, to make him understand that one may not draw near beauty with impunity, even though one may be very certain—telling his own heart—that love is undreamed of. He wondered whether he might not be afflicted with asinine pride.

He did not relish the glance that Linton bestowed on him; it seemed there was just a flash of triumph in it—that bit of a boast one sees in the eyes of a man who becomes, even briefly, the proprietor of a pretty woman.

"We were just talking over the latest news—or, rather, it's a rumor," said Miss Presson. With quick intuition she felt that something, somehow, was not just right. She hastened to break the silence. "They are saying that Mr. Spinney has withdrawn, and that his name will not go before the convention. Of course, you've heard about it, Herbert—and Mr. Thornton!"

They had not heard it. They looked guilty. They had been all the morning with Colonel Wadsworth, locked away from the throng, finishing matters of the night before. The expression on their faces was confession of their ignorance.

"If you're going to be early political fishermen you'll have to look for your worms sharp in the morning or you'll fetch up short of bait," suggested the Duke, maliciously.

"Three cheers and a snatch of band-music take on a hopeful color when they're lit up by red fire overnight," remarked the State chairman. "So do some other things. But a fellow with good eyesight usually comes to himself in the daylight."

"Is that true about Spinney?" asked Harlan, scenting mischief and treachery, and not yet enough of a politician to understand instantly just what effect this would have on the situation.

"I don't know anything about it," snapped Presson. "I don't care anything about it. It isn't important enough. The man's strength was overrated. It was mostly mouth. Just as soon as the delegates got together last night and shook themselves down it was plain enough where Spinney stood."

"But you yourself and grandfather have been saying all along that he—" began Harlan.

"We say a lot of things in politics," broke in the chairman, testily. "But it's only the final round-up that counts. And be prepared for sudden changes, as the almanac says! I tell you, I don't know anything about this Spinney rumor—nor I don't care. But it's probably true. Everett has got pledged delegates enough to nominate him by acclamation."

"But last night—" persisted Harlan.

His grandfather interrupted this time.

"Don't you remember that old Brad Dunham wrote to New York one spring and asked a commission man if he would take a million frogs' legs? Commission man wrote that he'd take a hundred pairs; and the best old Brad could do, after wading in the swamp back of his house all day, was to get a dozen. Wrote to the commission man that he'd been estimating his frogs by sound and thought he had a million. That's been the way with Spinney and his delegates, Harlan."

Mrs. Presson took advantage of the merriment to change the subject from politics. It was a topic that did not interest her, and she had learned from her husband's disgusted growlings that morning that there had been trouble the night before.

Harlan did not join in the chatter that went about the table. Under cover of it his grandfather gave him a few words of compassionate counsel.

"You'll have to swing in with the new deal, bub. You can't cut party sirloin too close to the horn, and that's what Vard did. He wants to sit on the mountain and slam us flat under a rock with the new ten commandments on it. We can't stand for it. I didn't dream that he had grown to be so impractical in his old age. No one wants any such deal as he's framing up for the State. As I told you, he's trying to build human nature over, and he can't do it. I'm sorry it's turned as it has—he could have been just a little diplomatic and made us a good Governor. But Everett will make a good one—you needn't be afraid of him. We'll put through a few measures that will smooth things down a little. Now you've got to remember that you're going to the legislature. You might just as well not be there if you don't stand clever with the administration. I haven't put you in just as I intended. But get into line now, quick. I can smooth it all right for you. I've squared myself with Everett—he needed me!"

Harlan listened patiently, keeping his eyes on his food.

"Right after breakfast Luke is going to have a talk with you and Linton."

"It will do Mr. Presson no good to talk to me. I'm with General Waymouth."

"But General Waymouth has been eliminated, you young idiot. It was the combination of circumstances that made him a candidate. But those circumstances have been changed. I can't explain to you how, Harlan—not here and now. But a brand-new trump has been turned. It had to be done. You stay behind here with Linton and talk with Luke."

The ladies were rising from the table.

Harlan did not reply. He did not remain. He stepped aside and allowed the ladies to pass, and followed them from the alcove. Presson stared after him angrily. Linton, obeying his request, sat down after Mrs. Presson and her party had retired.

"You've got a fool, there, for a grandson, Thelismer," stated the chairman with decision.

"He doesn't seem to be a politician," returned the old man, gazing after him. "There are a few joints in a man that he ought to be able to bend in politics, but Harlan seems to be afflicted with a sort of righteous ossification. He'll have to have his lesson, that's all!"

The young man was not in the mood to accept Miss Presson's invitation to accompany them to the hotel parlor. In the corridor he refused so brusquely that she stood and gazed at him, allowing the others to go on without her.

"You seem to be taking politics very seriously, Mr. Harlan Thornton."

"I'm taking honesty and my pledges seriously, that's all."

"Then your honesty puts you in opposition to my father, does it, sir?" It was said with a spark of resentment. "Do you realize how that sounds?"

"I do not say so, Miss Presson."

"But I have heard queer rumors this morning. Take a woman's advice once, Mr. Thornton: it may be worth something, because I have seen more of this game than you have. Don't kill your career at the outset by trying to realize an impossible ideal. It's bad enough in love, but it's much worse in politics!" She hurried away, joining the others.

Harlan paced the corridor impatiently, waiting for Linton to come out. Few men of the hundreds thronging past recognized him, and he was not accosted.

He caught fragments of talk. It was evident that the rumor concerning Spinney had found as many disbelievers as believers. Some charged that the story was started simply for the purpose of hurting the reform candidate by decrying his strength and inducing the wavering opportunists to come over to the winning side. Others said a trade had been effected, and that the story of it had leaked out prematurely. At any rate, the buzz of gossip showed that the situation was badly mixed.

Linton came alone. He had left the Duke and the chairman in conference. He took Harlan by the arm, and walked to the end of the corridor. They were alone there.

"Of course you know how I came to be in on the Waymouth side," he began, promptly. "Once I was in I didn't propose to quit so long as there was any hope. I did what mighty few young men in politics would do, Mr. Thornton—I stood out last night against Presson and your grandfather when they dropped the General. I just say that to show you I'm not a cur. But it's hopeless. The thing has turned completely over."

"You're going to desert the General?"

"It isn't desertion. That isn't a word that belongs in this situation. General Waymouth will not call it that after I've talked with him."

Harlan did not speak. At the breakfast-table he had been ashamed of that little gnawing feeling of rancor when he looked across at the young couple who seemed so wholly contented with their conversation. Now he indulged himself. He began to hate this young man cordially. He excused the feeling, on the ground that it was proper resentment on behalf of the General.

"I don't want you to think that I'm disloyal or a deserter in this matter, Mr. Thornton. But I'm going to the next legislature, and I'm interested in certain measures that will help this State if they're adopted. I can't help General Waymouth now; you can't help him. He has no one behind him, as the thing has turned."

"He's got the square deal behind him!"

"Meaning nothing in a political mix-up such as this is. I can't afford to dump all my future overboard and kill myself for the next legislature by an absolutely useless and quixotic splurge in to-day's convention. The General has made no canvass—he isn't even very much interested personally in the affair. I hope I stand straight with you now. I'm going up and tell the General exactly how I feel about the thing. I advise you to do the same. You'll be very foolish to butt your head against every political influence in this State that counts for anything. I told your grandfather—"

"I don't want your advice in politics," blazed Harlan, letting his grudge have rein, "and I don't thank you to tell me how to get along with my own grandfather!"

He hoped that young Mr. Linton would resent that manner of speech.

Young Mr. Linton, as stalwart as he, raised his black eyebrows, pursed his lips, and was not daunted by the outburst.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Thornton," he said, "but I fear you did not have enough sleep last night."

He started for General Waymouth's room, and Harlan followed him. There seemed to be no other haven for the latter just then. He was hung between the political sky and earth. He had no hope left that the General could prevail over the conditions that had so suddenly presented themselves. But his loyalty was not shaken. Now it had become unreasoning loyalty, dogged determination to stick to his choice; and as he looked at Linton's back preceding him along the corridor, he was more firmly determined than ever. Suddenly he was glad of the fact that this young man was on the other side, and he did not stop to analyze why he was glad it was so.

General Waymouth's parlor was crowded with men. The size of that levee astonished the two new arrivals. The General was not in sight. He was closeted with some one in the bedroom. Harlan and Linton noted that the men in the parlor did not wear the demeanor of ordinary visitors calling to pay their respects to a "has been." Some of them were talking eagerly in bunches, some were waiting—all were serious and anxious.

General Waymouth, coming to his bedroom door to usher out three men and admit others, saw his young lieutenants. He called them to him. He was straighter. He was stern. Fires within had given his eyes the flash of youth. All his usual gentle pensiveness was gone.

"My boys," he said, earnestly, "a week ago I didn't think I wanted to be Governor of this State again. But I want that office now with the whole strength of my soul. The devil is running our State to-day through his agents. I've got a duty to perform. I haven't time now to tell you what I've discovered since you left my room. I want you to—"

"I ask your pardon for interrupting, General," said Linton, manfully, "but I want to be as square with you as I can. Interests that belong to others will suffer if I continue with you—things being as they are. I make haste to speak before you tell me any more. I ask to be released."

"As a soldier I might question a resignation on the eve of battle, but as a politician I want no half-heartedness in my ranks. Good-day, Mr. Linton." He stood very erect, and his air admitted no further explanation. Linton bowed, and went out of the room.

"There is no half-heartedness here!" cried Harlan, passionately. "Is there anything I can do, General Waymouth?"

"Go and bring Arba Spinney to this room at once. Understand the situation before you go: I have already sent men for him. He has refused to come. Tell him this is his last opportunity to save himself from such deep disgrace that it will drive him from his State. I wish I could tell you to take him by the collar and lug him here. I venture to say you have the muscle, young man. But minutes are valuable—bring him."

Harlan hurried away.

Mr. Spinney was not in evidence in the parlor of his suite, but Harlan heard his tremendous voice in the bedroom—that voice could not be softened even in an exigency.

Several men whom Harlan recognized as members of the State Committee were seated near the door; and when he approached to knock, one of them informed him that Mr. Spinney was too busy to be seen.

"But my business is important."

"What sort of business is it?"

"Is Mr. Spinney afraid of visitors?" demanded the young man. His mien impressed the men. They knew that he was Thelismer Thornton's grandson. They conversed among themselves in whispers. Without waiting, and before they could stay him, he flung open the door.

Spinney stopped in his discourse with several men, and faced about apprehensively. He, too, recognized the young man, and was unable to decide whether to class him with friends or foes.

"Mr. Spinney, I have been sent to bring you with me instantly. Will you come?"

"Where?"

"It's a matter for your ear, sir. But you must come."

The men with Spinney promptly counselled him to remain where he was, but the candidate was impressed by the young man's determined appearance. Harlan strode to him, and took him by the arm. He had been used to the command of men since boyhood. "I have some very positive instructions. It will be a serious matter for you, Mr. Spinney, if you don't come—and you can't afford to take the advice of these men here."

He propelled his man toward the door, and Mr. Spinney went. It is likely that he concluded that no very serious damage could come to him in the presence of Thelismer Thornton's grandson. But when they arrived near the door of General Waymouth's parlor, Spinney recognized what it meant and resisted.

"It's a trap!" he gasped. "I thought your grandfather—"

The State Committeemen were following along the corridor, growling threats. Now they understood that this was practically an abduction. They hastened up to the scene of the struggle. But the young man was not deterred. He was obeying orders without question. With him it was not a matter of politics; he did not pause to wonder how the affair would be looked upon. The man to whom all his loyalty had gone out had commanded; he was obeying. But the others were resolute too. They were about to interfere. At that moment Thelismer Thornton appeared in the corridor.

"Let the boy alone," he commanded, thrusting himself among them.

The diversion gave Harlan his opportunity. Clutching Spinney with one hand, he threw open the door and pushed him in, followed him, and closed the door. He locked it, and stood with his back against it.

In that moment he did not reflect that in obeying General Waymouth so implicitly he might be playing traitor to his own flesh and blood. But the Duke, in his cynicism, had never attracted his grandson's political loyalty. That had seemed a matter apart from the family ties between them. His grandfather had set him on the trail of decency in politics, and had given him a leader to follow.

The frankness with which his grandfather had exposed the code by which he and his ilk operated in politics, making tricks, subterfuge, and downright dishonesty an integral part of the game and entitled to absolution, had divorced Harlan's straightforward sympathies when the question came to issue between his own relative, complacently unscrupulous, and General Waymouth, heroically casting off bonds of friendship and political affiliations, and standing for what was obviously the right. It was chivalrous. It appealed to the youth in Harlan. His manhandling of the amazed Spinney was an unheard-of event among gentlemen at a political convention, but there was more than impulse behind it. Harlan Thornton was a woodsman. Social conventions make the muscles subservient, but in the more primitive conditions the muscles leap ahead of the mind.

Therefore, he came with Mr. Spinney and tossed him into the presence of the chief, who had sent for him.

Then he set his broad shoulders against the door, for fists had begun to hammer at it.

It was evident at once that Spinney recognized the nature of the conference that had assembled in General Waymouth's room, and knew what the personnel of the group signified.

He looked around him and started toward the door.

"I've got witnesses to that assault, and you're going to suffer for it," he blustered. Harlan did not give way.

"You can't leave here yet, Mr. Spinney—not until General Waymouth finishes his business with you."

The General had viewed Mr. Spinney's headlong arrival with astonishment. He stepped forward to the centre of the room. There was a note in his voice that quelled the man as much as had Harlan's resolute demeanor at the door.

"Spinney, it will be better for you if you listen."

The candidate turned to face him, apprehensive and defiant at the same time. The panels of the door against which Harlan leaned were jarred by beating fists. Harlan heard the voice of his grandfather outside, calling to him impatiently. A moment more, and Chairman Presson added a more wrathful admonition to open.

"Mr. Thornton, will you kindly inform those people at the door that this is my room, and that I command them to withdraw?" directed General Waymouth.

Harlan flung the door open and filled the space with the bulk of his body. Both parties stood revealed to each other, the young man dividing them, and disdaining intrenchments.

"What kind of a crazy-headed, lumber-jack performance are you perpetrating here?" demanded the elder Thornton. "You're not handling Canucks to-day, you young hyena!"

"This is a scandal—a disgrace to this convention!" thundered Presson. He started to come in, but Harlan barred the doorway with body and arms.

"Do you want any of these gentlemen inside, General?" he asked.

"Neither Mr. Presson, nor Mr. Thornton, nor any of the rest," declared Waymouth. "And I want that disturbance at my door stopped."

"You hear that!" cried the defender of the pass. "Now, Mr. Presson, if you intend to disgrace this convention by a riot, it's up to you to start it." And then the choler and the hot blood of his youth spoke. He did not pick his words. His opinion of them was seething within him. He talked as he would talk to a lumber-crew. "I'm keeping this door, and I'm man enough for all the pot-bellied politicians you can crowd into this corridor. And if there's any more hammering here, I'll step out and show you."

He slammed the door, locked it, and set his shoulders against the panels.

"Luke, keep away," counselled Thelismer. "The boy is just plain lumber-jack at the present moment, and he's a hard man in a scrap. We can't afford to have a scene."

"They're going to turn wrongside-out that wad of cotton batting with two ounces of brains wrapped in it!" raved the State chairman. But the Duke pulled the politician away, whispering in his ear.

Spinney faced the General, blinking, doubtful, sullen.

The old soldier knew how to attack. He flung his accusation with fierce directness. "Spinney, you have sold out. You're a traitor. And you're a thief as well, for you've sold what didn't belong to you. You solicited honest men, in the name of reform, to put their cause into your hands. It was a trust. You've sold it."

"I'll prosecute you for slander!" roared the candidate. He hoped his defiance would be heard by those outside.

"You may do so, but I'll give you here and now the facts that you'll go up against. That's how sure I am of my ground!"

He shook papers at the man.

"Last night, or rather this morning at one o'clock, to be exact, you met Luke Presson and members of the State Committee, and for two thousand dollars, paid to you in one-hundred-dollar bills, you agreed to pull out. The secret was to be kept until it should be time for the nominating speeches to be made on the floor of the convention to-day. I have here affidavits signed by responsible parties who heard the entire transaction." It was accusation formal, couched in cold phrases, without passion.

Spinney started. The perspiration began to stream down his face. But in spite of the staggering blow the fight was not out of him. He thought quickly, reassuring himself by the recollection that his bedroom door had been locked, and men were on guard in his parlor. There could have been no eavesdroppers. This must be a bluff.

"That's a damnation lie!" he shouted.

"Don't you bellow at me, sir! I'm not trying to extort any confession. But you're wasting time, denying. I'm sure of my ground, I repeat. That's why I'm talking now. I'm an old man, and I was in politics in this State before you were born. And there were tricks and tricksters in the old days. And I knew them. I played one of those tricks on you, sir, last night. It's the last one I hope I shall ever play, for tricks are to be taken out of the politics of this State. The god of good chance lodged you in 'Traitor's Room,' last night, Mr. Spinney."

The man stared at him, frightened, not understanding.

"There's a false door and a slide in the wall of that bedroom, Spinney, and the old politician who put it there years ago passed the knowledge on to me. I'm willing every one should know it now. When you go back I will have it shown to you. It will convince you that these affidavits I hold in my hand are not guess-work. These men in this room now—for your own men brought me word that you were hiding from them—made those affidavits. Look at them, and deny—deny once more, Spinney!"

But the candidate had no voice now. He glanced furtively from face to face.

"Spinney," one declared, bitterly, "we've got you dead to rights. There ain't any use in squirming. We suspected you when you hid away from us, and General Waymouth put us in the way of finding out just who was with you. You might as well give in."

The General did not wait for Spinney to speak. He was in no mood then for listening. He was in command. He was issuing orders. The battle was on, and he was in the saddle.

"I propose to have your name go before the convention, Spinney. You must walk out of this room and deny the rumors that are afloat. I propose to have two of these men go with you and stay with you. And if you deny half-heartedly, or if you attempt any more sneak tricks, or if your name is not put into nomination to-day, I'll stand out and declare what is in these affidavits. If you want to save yourself and the men who bribed you, obey my orders."

"I don't understand why you want me to go ahead now," Spinney ventured to protest.

"And I don't propose to take you into my confidence enough, sir, to inform you. I simply instruct you to do as I say, and if you obey, I and these men here will do all we can to cover up this nasty mess in our party. It's in your hands whether you go to jail or not."

The General signalled to Harlan, and the young man opened the door. Spinney went out with his watchful guardians.

"Now you ought to be able to hold your men together until we need them, gentlemen," said the General, addressing those who remained. "But you'd better get out among them and see that they stay in line. Defend Spinney! God knows, the words will stick in your throats, but show a bold front to the other side. Gather in your stragglers."

They filed out, plain and stolid individuals from the rural sections.

Harlan was left alone with the General.

"There go the kind that the demagogues always catch, Mr. Thornton. The demagogues understand human nature. They prey on the radicals who will follow the man who promises—sets class against class and eternally promises! Promises the jealous ascetics to deprive other men of the indulgences they seem to enjoy—promises to correct things for the great majority which dimly understands that things are out of joint in their little affairs, and as dimly hope that laws and rulers can correct those things and make the income cover the grocery bills. Spinney had them by the ears, that he did! But the knave was shrewd enough to understand that the machine would probably whip him in convention. They used my name to scare him into selling out—threatened to stampede the convention for me. That's why I'm so angry."

"Let me ask you something, General. It was Spinney, was it, Spinney and the kind I've seen training with him in this thing, that stirred up the opposition in this State—the kind of opposition we found at our Fort Canibas caucus?"

"From all reports, yes. I know some of the agents that have been working in the State. The men behind have hidden themselves pretty well, and I'm not exactly certain where their money is coming from. But I suppose the liquor interests are putting in considerable, as usual."

"The liquor interests! Backing reformers?"

The General smiled.

"Remember that I've had better chances to see the inside than you, young man. I've watched it operate from the start. In case of doubt you'll find the liquor interests on both sides. It's an evil that prohibition opens the door to. The saloons are to be tolerated and protected, or they are to be persecuted—the programme depends on the men who get control. If they are to be tolerated, the wholesale liquor men have to stand in right, so that they may have the privilege of doing business with the retailers. If the saloons are to be closed, the liquor men want to stand in right, so that they can do business direct with the consumer; and then there are the increased sales through the legalized city and town agencies when the saloons are closed—the liquor men need that business. The liquor is bound to come in anyway, whichever faction is in control. So the big rumsellers cater to both sides."

"Isn't there any decency anywhere, in any man, General Waymouth, when he gets mixed into such things?"

"Don't lose your faith that way, my boy! You see, I'm even playing a few political tricks myself. Your grandfather is more than half right—we have to play the game! But I'm trying a last experiment with human nature before I die. I haven't the things to lose that a young man has. I am forcing myself on my party—using some means that disgust me, but I have to do so in order to prevail. I want to be Governor of this State again, and I want to be Governor with more powers than I had before. You and I both know what the party managers want, I'd like to find out if the people are willing to be governed that way, after they've learned there's a better system. I want to find out if every man in this State is willing to pay his own just share of taxes, if the people will wake up and stand behind a man who shows them how to keep from private greed what belongs to the people. And most of all, young man, this State is in a condition of civil war over this infernal liquor question. The radicals are away off at one side, and the liberals as far away from them as they can get, and both sides plastering each other with mud. There's no common ground for a decent and honest man to stand on between; that is, he's too much disgusted with both sides to join either. I want to see whether there's good sense enough in this State to take the thing out of the hands of the fanatics so that we can get results that decent men can subscribe to—results instead of the ruin and rottenness we're in now."

He stopped suddenly with a word of apology.

"You mustn't think I'm inflicting a rehearsal of my inauguration speech on you, Mr. Thornton. I talked more than I intended. But my feelings have been deeply stirred this morning."

"It's wicked business, General Waymouth! I don't understand how you've kept so calm through it. But, thank God, you can show 'em all up now, as they deserve to be shown to the people of this State. I can hardly wait for that convention to open!"

The General put his papers into his breast-pocket and buttoned his close frock-coat. He gazed on the young man's excitement indulgently.

"My boy, you have yet to learn, I see, that what would make a good scene in a theatre would be a mighty bad move in politics. This, to-day, is a convention that a good many thousands of voters are waiting to hear from. If they should hear the whole truth, I'm thinking that the Democratic party would win at the polls. So, you see, I must continue to be a politician. We'll be going along to the hall, now, you and I. It's near the hour. I want to be the next Governor of this State" (he smiled wistfully), "so you and I will go out and hunt for enough honest men to make me Governor."

The hotel was pretty well deserted as they walked down the stairs and through the lobby.

"Ours doesn't seem to be the largest parade of the day, Mr. Thornton," said the veteran mildly, when they were on the street, "but we'll see—we'll see!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP

Like a beacon marking shoals, Thelismer Thornton stood at the head of the broad granite steps that led up to the convention hall. An unlighted cigar was set hard between his teeth. Men flocked past him with obsequious greetings, but he merely grunted replies. He was watching for some one. He swore under his breath when he saw his man. General Waymouth and Harlan came up the steps together. He swung between them, and went along into the hall.

From open doors and windows band-music blared, welded with the roar of two thousand voices, each man shouting his conversation to be heard above his neighbors. It still lacked ten minutes of the hour set for the opening of the convention.

Under the cover of the uproar, as they walked along, the Duke delivered some very vigorous opinions to his grandson, expressing himself as to the latter's state of intellect, judgment, and general fitness to be allowed loose among men.

Harlan did not retort. He took his cue from the General, who smiled and listened.

"I'll tell you what I ought to do with you, boy! I ought to skin you. I'd find a ready sale for the hide. They could use it to make bindings for New Testaments. Your're too d—n—d righteous, altogether! I've been easy and patient with you, but I don't propose to stand at one side now, and see you ruin yourself politically. Why are you letting the boy do it, Varden?" he demanded, turning on the General. "You're old enough to know better. He's no help to you now. I supposed I had a grandson until you got hold of him!"

"You've still got a grandson, but you haven't got a political tool to use in prying open a new governorship deal every fifteen minutes," declared the young man. "You took me to General Waymouth, you pledged me to him—I pledged myself to him. I don't propose to discuss this matter any further. I'm my own man when it comes to politics!"

"Thelismer, I wouldn't say any more just now," suggested the General. "You are angry, and I've told you many times in past years that your judgment is not good when you are angry. But this is no place for talking these matters!"

The curious had already begun to throng about them. General Waymouth was a marked figure in a gathering. It had not become a matter of general knowledge that he was attending the convention. He had not appeared frequently in public since his retirement, and men were glad to see him. The early buzz that greeted his first appearance in the hall grew louder and louder, and swelled into an uproar as delegates turned in larger numbers and recognized him.

The vast body of the auditorium was crowded with men. Posts supporting huge placards indicated the division of delegates into counties. The General's own county was nearest the door by which he had entered. At a call from some one these delegates climbed upon their settees. They gave three cheers for him. It was a spontaneous tribute to the one great man of the State—their county's favorite son.

The word passed rapidly. Other counties came to their feet. The band was playing, the early enthusiasm of the day was fresh, men had not had opportunity to exercise their voices till then, and as the General passed down the side aisle of the hall he was cheered by every delegation. Harlan followed him closely, and the Duke was at their heels. Every man in the hall saw the little group. It seemed eminently fit that Thelismer Thornton should escort General Waymouth. But the Duke did not realize that the General was shrewdly using that opportunity of displaying Thornton, the elder, in his retinue. The accident fitted with some plans of his own.

Spurred by the excitement of that tumultuous moment, Harlan could not restrain a bit of a boast.

"How do you like the sound of that, grandfather?" he flung over his shoulder.

"There's no politics in that, you young fool. A hoorah isn't a nomination."

But he could not hide from himself the plain fact that Varden Waymouth was a tremendously strong figure in State affairs.

There was sincerity behind that outburst. Eyes glistened. Faces glowed with admiration and respect. The Duke wondered bitterly how much of that extraordinary tribute was inspired by the publicity work for which the State Committee had spent its good money.

The General led the way in at the side door that admitted to the stage. He was on familiar ground. Behind the stage there were several anterooms. He appropriated an empty one, hanging his hat on a hook.

"Not an elaborate lay-out for a candidate, Thelismer," he remarked, pleasantly, "but headquarters to-day is where we hang up our hat."

"Vard, you don't mean to tell me—seriously, at this hour—that you mean to be a candidate?" Thornton had put aside his anger. That had been bitter and quick ire, because his grandson had seemed so blind to his own personal interests. There was solicitude now in the old man's air.

"I got you into this myself," he went on. "I coaxed you in, for the situation was right and ripe. You kicked it over yourself. I haven't any compunctions, Vard. I stayed with you just as long as I could stay. But I'll be dod-jimmed if I'll shove a Governor onto my party that's a hybrid of Socialist and angel. Now you can't swing this thing. Everett's got it buttoned. I tell you he has! You're too big a man, to-day, to get before that convention and be thrown down. I've got a better line on the situation than you have. Vard, let's not have this come up between us at our time of life. It's bad—it's bad!"

"It is bad," returned the General, quietly; "but not for me! And it's too late to stop. I'm going through with it, Thelismer."

There was dignity—a finality of decision—that checked further argument. Thornton shifted gaze from Waymouth to his grandson, started to say more, snapped his jaws shut, and walked away.

The door of the anteroom afforded a view across the stage. The hour had arrived. The secretary of the State Committee appeared from the wings and waited until the delegates were in their seats and quiet. He read the call, and then the temporary organization was promptly effected, the tagged delegates popping up here and there and making the motions that had been entrusted to them.

A clergyman invoked Divine blessing, praying fulsomely and long, beseeching that the delegates would be guided by the higher will in their deliberations.

"It's the only prayer I ever find amusing—God pardon me!" whispered the General at Harlan's side, watching the preliminaries. "To call a State convention, as the machine runs it, a deliberative body is a sad jest of some magnitude. The managers intend to hold the real convention the night before in the State Committee's headquarters at the hotel. But to-day I hope that prayer proves prophetic."

He studied the faces on the platform. The United States Senator, smug and now satisfied that he had chosen aright for his personal interests, sat in the chairman's central seat, and studied his people from under eyelids half lowered while the parson prayed.

After the prayer, the routine proceeded hurriedly. For five minutes the convention seemed to be in a state of riot. Men were bellowing and yelping, and standing on settees. The counties were holding simultaneous caucuses for the purpose of selecting, each its vice-president of convention, its State committeeman, and member of the Committee on Resolutions—the resolutions then reposing in the breast-pocket of the Hon. Luke Presson.

The secretaries were announced, the temporary organization was made permanent, and, advancing against a blast of band-music and a salvo of applause, the Senator-chairman began his address.

"Now," remarked General Waymouth, grimly, "I am ready to open headquarters in earnest. My boy, in that anteroom across the stage you'll find your grandfather and Mr. Presson, and certain members of the State Committee. David Everett will be there, too. Inform them I send my urgent request that they meet, at once, the Hon. Arba Spinney and a delegation in my room here. I think that combination will suggest to guilty consciences that they'd better hurry. If they show any signs of hesitating, you may intimate as much to them."

The plain and stolid men came in just then. They brought Mr. Spinney through the side door. The unhappy conspirator, jostled by his body-guard, was near collapse. He was now traitor to both sides. Circumstances hemmed him in. But more than he feared the recriminations of Luke Presson and his associates, he feared the papers in the breast-pocket of Varden Waymouth.

Harlan went on his errand, crossing the stage behind a backdrop. Senator Pownal had got well under way, and was setting forth the sturdy principles of the Republican party with all the power of his lungs.

Harlan did not knock at the anteroom door; he walked in, and for a moment he thought that the enraged chairman was about to leap at his throat.

"Spinney, eh?" he blazed at the young man's first word. "Explain to me, Mr. Thornton, what is meant by your assault on a decent and honest citizen? What do you mean by teaming him from the hotel to this convention hall with a body-guard to insult men who have business with him?"

The question was confession that the chairman had been unable to get at the political property he had paid dearly for. It indicated that he suspected but did not realize fully how deeply Spinney was in the toils.

"Explain!" shouted Presson, standing on tiptoe to thrust features convulsed with rage into the young man's face.

"General Waymouth is waiting to explain, sir. He's across the stage, there! And Mr. Spinney is with him. I'd advise you to hurry."

"I don't need any of your advice! If you've got him on exhibition at last where the public can be admitted, I can't get there any too quick."

He rushed out, charging like a bull, and the others followed.

The State committeeman who closed file with Harlan did not appreciate the gravity of the situation.

"You seem to be introducing new features into a State Convention to-day, cap'n," he observed, sarcastically. "The way you're handling Brother Spinney is like the song about

"'Old Jud Cole, who went by freight To Newry Corner in this State; Packed him in a crate to get him there, With a two-cent stamp to pay his fare.'"

He added, "Spinney is light enough to travel on that tariff, but you're going to find he's got friends that are heavier."

Young Thornton waited till all had entered the anteroom, and again took his post as guard on the inside of the door.

General Waymouth checked Presson at the first yelp of the outburst with which he had stormed into the room. Probably there was not another man in the State who could have prevailed by sheer force of dignity and carriage in that moment when the passions of his opponents were so white-hot. But he was, in intellect, birth, breeding, and position, above them all, and they knew it. There, boxed in that little room, they faced him, and anger, rancor, spite, itch for revenge gave way before his stern, cold, inexorable determination to prevail in the name of the right.

"Gentlemen, I haven't called you here for the purpose of arguing or wrangling. You'll waste time by trying to do either. You are here to listen to what must be done. You represent the warring factions. There are enough of us to straighten the matter out. There are not so many that the secret of this shameful mess cannot be kept, and our party saved at the polls."

He paused to draw the fateful documents from his pocket.

In the hush of the little room they heard Senator Pownal declaiming: "And it is upon these firm principles, bedrock of inalienable rights guaranteed to the people, upon the broad issues of reform, inculcation of temperance, and the virtues of civic life, that the Republican party is founded."

Harlan, at the door, younger than the rest, found a suggestion of humor in what the orator was saying compared with what the party managers had met to hear. But there were no smiles on the faces of the group. The demeanor of the stricken Spinney, anger fairly distilling in his sweat-drops, hinted the truth to Presson. Thelismer Thornton tried to get near Spinney, understanding it all even better than the State chairman, but the plain and stolid men flanked their captive with determination.

"I have here five affidavits from eye-witnesses, swearing that Arba Spinney was bribed to sell out his faction at the last moment to-day, leaving only David Everett in the field. I have no time to waste in giving the details of that transaction to men who know them just as well as I do. And I want no interruption, sir!" He brandished the papers under the nose of Presson, who attempted to speak. "I do not propose to have my intelligence insulted by denials from you or any one else. If you don't believe I have full proof of what I charge, you walk out of that door and put the matter to the test! And I hasten to assure you, sir, that you'll be eternally disgraced!"

He waited a moment, because a roar of applause that greeted one of Senator Pownal's utterances resounded even in the remote anteroom.

"It all means, gentlemen, that I'm to be the nominee of this convention to-day. It's time for a clean-up, and I'm going to start one. The men who are running our party are not fit to be in charge of it. The voters deserve a better show. I've called you here to give you an opportunity to save yourselves, personally. I'm willing to submit to a little by-play for that purpose. You are to allow Spinney's name to go before the convention, according to the regular programme. That's to divert the attention of the convention and the State-at-large from what otherwise would seem a split in the recognized management of the party. Spinney has been only a rank outsider, politically considered. We have to consider the campaign, gentlemen, and the material we may furnish our friends, the enemy. Then, you gentlemen of the State Committee, each in his county delegation, are to start a demonstration in my behalf. This is no time for me to be mock-modest. On the heels of that demonstration Everett's name is to be withdrawn with the explanation that such an apparently spontaneous demand from the voters should be recognized. Mr. Everett is to declare that under the circumstances he does not wish to stand in the way of popular choice, and he is to announce that much and present me to the convention. I assure you, Mr. Everett, that I ask this last with no intent of wounding your feelings or indulging in cheap triumph—it is necessary in order that the mouths of political gossips may be shut."

A rather stupid silence followed that declaration of programme. The voice of the Senator rose and fell without.

The General met their staring eyes calmly. "It may be a rather surprising development of the convention," he said. "But as soon as the surprise is over it will commend itself as a perfectly natural and graceful concession to public opinion—as public opinion can be set in motion by the members of the State Committee on the floor of the convention. In fact, the plan commended itself to my friend Thelismer, here, and Chairman Presson some weeks ago."

The State chairman was stirred as though galvanically by that statement. The bitter memory of how he had groomed the dark horse that was now kicking his master's political brains out rose in him.

"By the everlasting gods," he shouted, "I'll go down fighting! If the house has got to come down, I'll go down with it."

"Samson had two arms. I have only one," returned General Waymouth. "But I've got that arm around the central pillar of your political roof, gentlemen—and I've got the strength to handle it! You've stated your position as a politician, Presson. Now I'll state mine. Rather than see the Republican temple made any longer a house of political ill-fame I'll pull it down on you prostitutes."

It was bitter taunt—an insult delivered with calm determination to sting. Presson stamped about the room in his wrath.

"I'm making no pact or promise," went on the General. "I declare that you are the men who are wrecking our party. Now if you propose to wreck it completely, we'll go smashing all together in the ruins. It may as well be wrecked now as later!"

There was another hush in the room.

"So I call upon you, men of office, shop, and farm, bone and sinew of our grand old party," exhorted Senator Pownal from the forum outside, "to forget the petty bickerings of faction and stand shoulder to shoulder in your march to the polls. Nail the principles of justice, truth, and honesty to the flagstaff, and follow behind that banner, winning the suffrages of those who believe in the right."

"It sounds as though the Senator might be arriving close to his amen," suggested General Waymouth, ironically. "You have only a few minutes in which to decide. I hold the proxy of one of these delegates to the convention." He pointed to one of the stolid and plain men. "You know that I can get the ear of that convention—you can't work any gag-rule on me—I have been listened to too often by the men of this State when I've had something to say. And you know what effect these affidavits will have!"

There was further silence, broken only by the voice of the Senator without and Presson within, who was scuffling about, babbling disjointed oaths.

Suddenly a great outburst of applause signified that the Senator had concluded.

"Go ahead out and kill your party!" barked Presson. "Give it your strychnine! It may as well die right now, in a spasm, as to have a lingering death later with you at the head of it, Waymouth. You can't team me!"

"You let me say a word right here!" blustered Everett. "I wash my hands of any deal with Spinney. I've got the bulk of that convention behind me. I don't propose to be shunted."

"I supposed you all remembered the details of what you did last evening," returned the General, coldly. "Is it necessary for me to remind you, Mr. Everett, that Chairman Presson turned over to Spinney a paper in which you agreed to appoint him to a State office? That transaction was noted along with the rest, sir."

"I'll have as many witnesses as you," declared Presson, "I'll—"

"Stop!" It was a tone that cowed the chairman, struggling with his guilty conscience. "I have warned you that I'm not here to argue this matter with you. I'll not be drawn into any discussion. What I have, I have!" He waved his papers above his head. "What I can do that I'll do! I would remind you, gentlemen, that the convention is waiting."

Thelismer Thornton caught the secretary of the State Committee by the arm and propelled him toward the door, ordering Harlan to open it. "Signal that band! Start it to going!" he directed. "Keep those delegates easy." He turned on the chairman. "Now, Luke, you're licked. And it's your own deadfall that's caught you. I know just how you feel, but here's a laundry-bag that you've got to draw the puckering-strings on. Shut up! I'm going to save you from yourself. You're running amuck, now. You're a lunatic, and not responsible." He dragged the defiant chairman back into the room. He held him in firm grip. "There's a new bribery law in this State. You haven't forgotten it, have you! It's State prison!"

"Look here, gentlemen," he went on, addressing the members of the State Committee, "you've got just five minutes leeway between a devilish good political walloping and striped suits. Get out on the floor. Get busy with those delegations. And the man of all of you who dares to say one word too much about what's been done here to-day will peek through bars and wish his tongue had been torn out by the roots before he talked! Presson, this thing is out of your hands. You shan't cut your own throat, I say! Get onto that floor, men!"

They went. It was the rush of men to save themselves. Each man as he passed out cast a glance upon the papers that General Waymouth clutched, and a second glance at Harlan, brawny guard, at his side.

"Take Everett across to the committee-room and call in the men who were to present him," directed the Duke, releasing the chairman. "And it's up to you two to give 'em a story that will hold 'em. It's short notice, but you've got General Waymouth for a text! Look here, Dave," he whirled on Everett, who was frantically protesting, "your strength was the strength the boys of the machine put behind you. It hasn't been personal strength. You can't afford to be a blasted fool now, even if you are crazy mad. You've been lecturing considerably the past few weeks on 'party exigencies.' This is one. It's an exigency that will put you before a grand jury if you don't tread careful. Get across there, you and Presson! I'm eating dirt myself. Get down on your hands and knees with me, and make believe you like it!"

He hustled them out.

The band was rioting through a jolly melange of popular melodies.

The old man hesitated a moment, and then walked across to the General.

"Vard, politics is most always a case of dog eat dog, but I want to assure you that I'm not hungry just now if you are not! And my grandson seems to have more political foresight than I gave him credit for. I'm getting old, I see!"

He did not give them opportunity to answer. He swung about and went to Spinney.

"I reckon they'll raise your guard, now, Arba," he said, nodding at the stolid and plain men. "There isn't much more that you can do, either to harm or help. You'd better pull a chair out to the edge of the stage there, and listen to what a h—l of a fellow you are when your orators nominate you. Then before the applause dies away, you'd better start for home. It'll be a good time to get away while Presson is busy!" It was plain that, lacking any other object, the Duke was venting the last of his spleen on this wretched victim of the game. "Before you go, give me one of those 'Honest Arba' ribbons. I keep a scrap-book of jokes!"

The abject candidate had no word to offer in reply. He was white and trembling, for after Presson's early declaration it had seemed that the whole shameful story was to be thundered in the ears of those two thousand men sitting yonder.

"You can suit yourself as to your further movements, Spinney," said the General, noting the man's distress.

"There's a rear exit from this hall," remarked the Duke, significantly.

Spinney went out, hanging his head.

"Well, there's at least one cur eliminated from the politics of this State," blurted Harlan, gratefully.

"Eliminated!" sneered his grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your buttonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy perennial—you needn't worry about him."

"I think you're the man to take these documents to the Committee on Resolutions, Thelismer," stated the General, drawing out the planks he had submitted the evening before. "You can explain why they should be inserted—and I have modified them somewhat. I have no desire to frighten the party at the outset."

The Duke took the papers, and departed without a word. The men of the affidavits returned to their delegations on the floor of the convention, gratification in their faces, as well as a sense of the importance of the secret they were guarding.

The band gave a final bellow, and the business of the convention proceeded.

General Waymouth and Harlan took chairs into their little room and sat down to wait. The sounds came to them mellowed by distance, but distinct. They followed the procession of events.

Spinney's name was presented by an up-country spellbinder who had copied logic, diction, and demagogic arguments from his chief. But all the thrill, swing, and excitement of the Spinney movement were gone. Red fire, hilarity, and stimulants could not be used to spice this daylight gathering of men ranged in orderly rows on their settees—and subtle suggestion had already gone abroad. Yet the undercurrent of opposition to the further dictation by the party ring was shown by the applause that greeted every reference by the speaker to the conditions that existed in the party. On the text of Spinney, personating Protest, the orator preached to willing converts who clamored for change, even though no better leader than Spinney offered. Spinney got perfunctory applause; suggested change was cheered tumultuously.

The convention was ripe for revolution against dominant conditions, without exactly understanding how to rebel wisely and well.

Suddenly a clarion voice raised itself from the convention floor. They in the little room could hear every word.

"That's Linton," said the General, calmly. "He balked under my pat, but he's plunging into the traces handsomely under the whip!"

"Linton! After refusing? Is he presenting your name?"

"Oh, he's a politician, and one must allow a politician to weigh out his stock of goods on his own scales, and hope that he will give good measure. I'll be grateful in this instance, Mr. Thornton. They've picked out an able young speaker!"

In spite of his resentful opinion of Linton, an opinion into which he would not admit to himself that jealousy entered, Harlan, as he listened, had to acknowledge the ability of the young lawyer.

First he caught the attention of his auditors, then he skilfully suggested that he was preparing a surprise. With appealing frankness that won the interest and sympathy of the Spinney adherents, he agreed with them that the times demanded changes and reforms. He urged that these should be undertaken within the party, and then, earnestly but delicately, he hinted that the reformers had not picked the right leader. As delicately he suggested, next, that an extreme partisan, bound far in advance of nomination by factional pledges and trades that he must carry out, was not the right man to extricate the party, either. Lastly, he came to the crux of his speech, plunging into the theme with passionate eloquence that brought moisture to the eyes of Harlan. That young man was not thinking of the orator, then. His thoughts were on the old man at whose side he sat—the old man who listened in dignified patience.

Now the delegates sniffed the truth. A word had put them on the trail. They were not sure. But they suspected. And mere suspicion sent them upon their settees, cheering wildly. Distrust of Spinney, sullen disloyalty to the machine-created Everett, furnished a soil in which hope for another solution of the tangle sprang with miraculous growth.