Under other conditions the railroad company's "social secretary," as the society editors of the capital were still calling him, might have had a joyous half-holiday. The autumn afternoon was picture-fine, the little car ran well, and Patricia's mood was tempered with the gayety which strives to extract the final thrill of enjoyment out of the closing days of a delightful vacation. Blount was grateful for the light-hearted mood. He felt that it would be next to impossible to tell Patricia how wretchedly he had failed in the single-handed crusade, and, as to the desperate alternative, there could be no confidences with one whose every reference to his father was shot through with loving and loyal admiration.

At the military reservation there were fewer opportunities for the confidences, or rather fewer temptations to indulge in them. It was a gala day at the post, and there were a number of auto parties out from the city. Blount knew most of the officers and their wives, and Patricia was welcomed not less for her own sake than for the reason that she had figured in former visits as the _protegee_ of an ex-senator's wife.

After the parade there was an impromptu game of baseball, with the broad verandas of the officers' quarters serving for the grandstand. Beyond the game there was tea, and the sunset gun had been fired before the young lieutenant, who had attached himself to Miss Anners at the earliest possible moment in the afternoon, reluctantly surrendered his prize and handed Patricia into the waiting runabout for the return to the capital.

"We shall be late for dinner, if we don't hurry," was the young woman's comment when Blount steered the little car clear of the post settlement and took the road well in the wake of the Weatherford touring machine.

Then she added: "We mustn't be; we are dining out this evening--at the Gordons."

Blount was entirely willing to hurry. Half of one of the precious days of challenge had been wasted in the futile search for Gryson, and here was the other half worse than wasted, since the handsome young lieutenant had so brazenly monopolized Patricia.

"I'll get you home in time for dinner, never fear," he returned, but apparently the little car was no party to the promise. A short mile from the reservation the motor began to miss, and a few minutes farther along it stopped altogether. Blount got out and began to investigate. There was plenty of gasolene, but the spark appeared to be dead.

"I ought to have a leather medal!" he confided to Patricia, in great disgust. "Mrs. Blount told me that the batteries needed to be changed, and I had them changed, but neglected to have them tested. Sit still and let me spin it on the magneto a while."

She let him do it until the perspiration was standing in fine little beads on his forehead and he was hot and desperate. Then she said sweetly: "I don't believe I'd wear myself out that way, if I were you, Evan. Something happened to the magneto two or three weeks ago, and it has never been fixed."

Blount pushed his driving-cap back, mopped his face, and came around to dive once more into the wiring in the battery box. Dusk was coming on, and he had to light one of the side-lamps to serve as a lantern. By changing the wiring he was finally able to evoke a desultory response from the spark-coil, and a little later to start the motor after some limping fashion.

"Oh, my poor dinner!" said Miss Anners, who was still in the light-hearted mood; this after Blount's careful nursing had resulted in a creeping resumption of the cityward progress. And then: "I hope you didn't have any engagement for this evening?"

"I have but one ambition in life," he rejoined grimly, "and that is to get you back to the hotel in time for your engagement. Surely Mrs.

Blount will wait for you."

At the rate they were going the waiting promised to be long. But after another half-hour had been killed, the headlights of a westward-driven car appeared in the road ahead. Blount pulled quickly into the ditch and jumped out to flag the oncoming machine; did flag it, and was able to borrow a set of batteries. With the new equipment the remainder of the drive was accomplished swiftly, but not swiftly enough. At the Inter-Mountain they found that the senator and Mrs. Honoria had gone to keep their dinner engagement, and a note in the little lady's copperplate handwriting informed Blount that the invitation had been made to include him, and that he was to hurry and bring Patricia.

Fully alive now to the time-killing purpose of the clever little machinator in arranging to have spent batteries given him, Blount, nevertheless, did his duty like a man, and the pair made a late descent upon the Gordon dinner-table. Though the dinner was informal, there were other guests besides the senator's party, and among them the traffic manager. Blount, sitting next to Patricia, made their tardiness an excuse and devoted himself to her, thus escaping the toils of the general table-talk, which was frankly political. But at the adjournment to the drawing-room he cornered Gantry.

"I meant to hunt you up this afternoon," he began, "but I was otherwise spoken for. What have you done?"

"I've cabled a conditional acceptance of the offer I was telling you about."

"But you haven't resigned?"

"No. Mr. McVickar will probably be here within a day or two, and I'll make it verbal."

Yielding to the urgings of the younger Gordon, Patricia was going to the piano, and Blount s.n.a.t.c.hed at his opportunity.

"Give me a few minutes in the smoking-room," he said to the traffic manager, and when the privacy was secured: "You needn't resign, d.i.c.k.

There isn't going to be any earthquake--of the kind you were fearing."

"You don't mean that the Honorable Senator has turned you down, Evan?"

"Just that."

"I'm sorry," said the friend in need, feeling his way cautiously. Then he added: "You needn't tell me anything more than you want to, you know."

"There isn't much to tell. I asked for bare justice, and it was refused."

"Your father has the papers?"

"He neither admitted nor denied."

"But you didn't quarrel?"

Blount's smile was mirthless. "We are here together, as you see. After all is said, we are still father and son."

"Of course; that's as it should be, Evan. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know: go on fighting until I'm wiped out, I suppose. And that reminds me: have you seen that fellow Gryson within the last day or two?"

Gantry dropped into the depths of a lounging-chair and lighted a cigarette. "So you're after Thomas Matthew, too, are you? Kittredge has been ransacking the town for him all day, and up to a couple of hours ago he hadn't found him. What's in the wind?"

"I don't know, but I mean to find out. What can you tell me about Gryson--more than you have already told me?"

"Not very much, I guess. He's a scalawag, of course, but unhappily for all of us he is a scalawag with a pull. Kittredge has been d.i.c.kering with him--I don't mind telling you that now."

"What is the nature of the pull?"

"Votes," said Gantry succinctly.

"Straight or crooked?"

"You may search me. But knowing Tom Gryson a little, I should put my money on the marked card."

"Naturally," said Blount dryly. "Still, I am needing to be shown. I've had two or three chances to size Gryson up, and he didn't impress me as a man with any ability beyond the requirements of a bully and the lowest type of a political heeler."

"Tom is bigger than that; I don't know how much bigger, but some. He has votes to sell, and Kittredge, at least, seems to believe that he can deliver the goods. I don't know the inside of the deal. I'll tell you frankly that I tried to shove it over to you, neck and heels, at first.

When that little notion failed, I pushed it along to Kittredge."

Blount's eyebrows, which promised in time to be as portentous as the Honorable Senator's, met in a frown. "I'm going to find Gryson, dead or alive," he said.

Gantry looked up quickly.

"Which means that you know what has become of him?"

"He has been put out of the way for a purpose, and the purpose is to keep me from finding out something that Gryson wants to tell me. That was the animus of the scheme to send me on a fool's errand to Lewiston.

After you left me last night I found out that Gryson had been worrying Collins the day before; had been in the office a number of times and was sweatingly anxious about something."

Gantry flung his cigarette away and lighted another. After a deep inhalation or two he said: "Let it alone, Evan. I have a hunch that you'll be happier if you don't try to drag the cover off of that particular cesspool."

"Listen," said Blount shortly. "When my father turned me down last night I told him that I still had five days in which to--"

"I know," Gantry nodded. "Just the same, you're not going to do it."

"If I don't, it will be because I can't; because the time is too short."

Then, with a sudden and impulsive gesture of appeal: "d.i.c.k, for Heaven's sake help me to find that man Gryson, if you know where he is! I shall blow up if I can't do something!"

Gantry rose and tossed the second cigarette among the coals in the grate.

"I've been afraid all along that they'd corner you and beat you to death with feather-dusters," he lamented. "And the only thing I can say will make matters worse instead of better. I have it pretty straight that Gryson has been fired--shooed out of town, and probably out of the State."