THE CALL
In the big living-room, now flooded with the mountain sunshine that
streamed in through the open door, Richard Brent leaned to knock the
ashes from his pipe against the end of the hewn bench on which he sat.
Then he looked up at Sevier standing in front of the empty fire-place.
"Well," he asked, "what do you think of it? How's that for a chance,
eh?"
Sevier nodded. One hand was tugging at his dark beard, the other was
clasping and unclasping nervously behind him. "The new organisation
can't win, of course," he answered quietly. "Politically speaking it's
too young, and it lacks leaders. But it can make a strong showing, I
should think."
Brent laughed as he explored his capacious tobacco-pouch. "Especially
if the platform is built wide enough." He pointed to a newspaper he
had brought with him, that lay beside him. "That editorial of mine
hits the nail squarely on the head. There is one issue and only one
which will draw in all the elements opposed to the party that now
rules--that is the liquor issue. That _must_ go in!"
A quick gleam crossed Harry's face. None but he knew what liquor had
done for him, no eye but his might see the pitiful trail it had dragged
across his burnished life!
Brent laughed again. "It's strange that they don't see it!" he said.
"Can't they deduce anything. Look at the growth of similar movements
in other states. Do they really believe that any genuine
good-government party can sit in the same saddle with John Barleycorn?
That's why the thing has always failed in the past--compromise,
temporise, fusion. Fiddlesticks! why can't they take the bull by the
horns? They would, too, if there was some one who would crystallise
the thing in their minds." He shot a keen side-glance at Harry. "When
you made that Civic Club speech last year," he said shrewdly, "I picked
you for the Peter the Hermit of the new Gospel. And then, confound it!
you bury yourself in the wilds up here, while every one thinks you've
gone abroad, and I have to pack my rheumatic bones twenty miles on an
infernal burro, to dig you out of your shell!"
Harry's eyes had been absently fixed on the spread-out newspaper.
Something in the other's words, in his manner, caught him. A colour
came to his cheeks. "Dig me out of my shell?" he repeated. "What do
you mean by that?"
Brent looked at him intently for a long second. During the past year
he, like others, had wondered at his friend's long absence. At first
he had put it down to natural need of vacation and the other's failure
to communicate with his friends had seemed significant of no more than
the mild eccentricity which had always flavoured his actions. Only
later the thought had come to him that Harry's absence might be due to
an affair of the heart. This to him had pointed unerringly to Echo
Allen, and conviction had leaped to a certainty on the day when he had
seen her reception of Jubilee Jim's news of Harry's whereabouts. Had
it been a lovers' quarrel? he had wondered. If so, and she had sent
him away, she had repented of it, that was manifest. The news of
Harry's whereabouts, in his mind, had dovetailed with his knowledge of
the political situation and its need of leadership, and the second day
thereafter had found him on horseback, following the difficult trail to
Harry's mountain eyrie. He had come to grips now with his errand. He
sat suddenly upright.
"Sevier," he said, "you've got to do it. You are the only one who can.
You've got to speak at that convention on the seventeenth and nail that
plank into the platform hard and fast!"
Harry made a quick gesture, then left the fireplace and began to stride
up and down the room. During that silent, insistent gaze it had come
to him with a strange glow of excitement what Brent intended to say.
His heart was beating quickly, and a host of conflicting emotions were
rioting in his mind. The allusion to his speech of a year ago had
brought a throb of the old ecstasy of power--that power which he knew
was his now, and in greater degree. If he only might use it for this
good purpose!
Brent, looking at him, uncrossed his long legs with a smile. "I
agree," he said, "that we may not be able to win this time, but it will
start it off right, and it will be a good fight. I'll bet you what you
like that within a week--if that plank is rightly hammered in--the
Good-Government Clubs all over the State will be wiring allegiance!"
He got up, his lank, nervous figure braced with interest.
"And what if we do lose this Governorship? It will be the first real
nail in John Barleycorn's coffin in this State!"
Sevier had sat down on the blanketed couch. His gaze went past the
eager face before him and lingered on the sweet, warm world outside,
with all its suggestions of new growth and virile strength. But what
he really saw was very far away. Was he a poor coward then, to shrink
from a woman's smile, a woman's eyes? He put his face in his hands.
Possibilities were beckoning to him, dead things springing up alive,
old longings, ambitions, appetences plucking at him.
For a time Brent did not speak. He had turned away and stood in the
sunny doorway, looking down the trail. At length he faced about.
"Sevier," he said quickly. "What do you say? Will you do it?"
Harry looked up. The colour had faded from his face, but it was alight
with a new energy and resolution. The call had found him, and at that
moment the harrowing dread--the problem itself, which had shown so
imminent--seemed to have grown dim, to have drawn into the far distance.
"Yes," he answered slowly, "yes, Brent. I will come."