"You're willing to leave it to me?"

"I am."

"Then I'll admit I've picked the men in my mind. One is Linton, that young lawyer that's been taking the lead in the referendum and the direct primaries campaigns--both of them devilish poor political policies; but that doesn't prevent him from being the most eloquent young chap in the State. And he'll tole along the liberals. We'll need only one other--that's old Colonel Wadsworth. You see the scheme of that combination, of course! We don't need any more. The convention will be off its feet before the old Colonel gets half through his seconding speech. Linton is a delegate, Luke, and I saw to it that the old Colonel was fixed out with a proxy after I got here. Now, Harlan, you go out and hunt up those two gentlemen, and bring them here quietly. They're in the hotel. Come to the private door, there. You say you haven't suggestions, Vard?"

"Not now," said the General, not shifting his position. "The time for my suggestions has not come yet."

Harlan went out into the throng, searching, asking questions. The first man of whom he made inquiry recognized him as Thelismer Thornton's grandson, and invited him to the bar to have a drink.

"Busy?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed when the young man declined. "H--l, there ain't any one really busy here to-night, except Senator Pownal and Luke Presson. They're running the convention. The delegates don't have to do anything--they are just here for a good time. Come on!"

As Harlan walked away from him, he remembered what Chairman Presson had just delivered from his papers, and decided that truth often spoke from the depths of the wine-cup.

He did not find either of his men in the Hon. David Everett's headquarters. The rooms were packed. Perspiring delegates were edging in and oozing out. Everett was industriously shaking hands, his rubicund face sweat-streaked, his voice hoa.r.s.e after his hours of constant chatter in that smoke-drenched atmosphere. Harlan stood a moment, and looked at him with a sort of shamed pity. The plot seemed unworthy, in spite of its object. The sordid treachery of politics was turned up to him, all its seamy side displayed.

Two men crowded past him, talking low; but in that press their mouths were near his ear. They were halted by the jam at the door.

"What did you stab him for--how much?" asked one.

"Got ten," said his companion--"ten on account. I get fifty for the caucus."

"Too many machine Republicans in my town, and he knows it," said the other. "The best I could do was fool him out of twenty-five. But that's doing well--in these times. This Spinney stir has made it cost Everett more than it has cost any candidate for ten years. I really didn't have the heart to crowd him for any more. He's been jounced down good and hard as it is."

Harlan took one more look at the unconscious and fatuous Everett, and went out of the room. Twenty feet away, as he knew, sat his grandfather, ready and able to smash the candidate's dreams and chances as a child bursts a soap-bubble. And the man's money--thrown to the winds when a word might have held his hand and closed his pocket-book! Harlan, grandson of Thelismer Thornton, tried to put the thing out of his mind.

"Politics," said a man in the corridor in his hearing, "has got the pelt off'm second-story work, as they're running the political game in this State right now. But it's only petty larceny. And that's why the whole thing makes me sick."

"Me too," said his listener. "You could brag some about a political safe-blowing, but we all have to turn to and hush up this sneak-thief work."

Harlan, walking on, wondered whether the coup that was then in process of elaboration in State Committee headquarters would not be considered by Everett and his supporters as arising to the proper dignity of political crime.

To his surprise Spinney's rooms were practically deserted. The candidate was there, perched on the edge of a table, nursing his knee in his clasped hands and talking vigorously to a few of his intimates. The defection was not bothering him, apparently. Harlan promptly understood why. As he stood for a moment, making sure that neither Linton nor Wadsworth was there, he heard the mellow blare of distant band music.

Spinney jumped off the table.

"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 spa.r.s.e 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 endors.e.m.e.nt.

"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