earnest, more forcible. He knew that the candidate must be sinking from
physical weakness--his pale, drawn face showed that--but his spirit
flamed up for this last speech, and the crowd was wholly under the spell
of his powerful appeal.
Harley met, presently, the cousin, Sandidge.
"This is Grayson's greatest speech of the day," Harley said, "and how it
must please Mr. Plover!"
"That's so," replied Sandidge; "but Billy's all broke up over it."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Harley, in sudden alarm.
"The Denver Express is nearly two hours and a half late--won't be here
until three, and at Denver it'll miss the 'Frisco Express; won't be
another for a day. So Billy, who's in a hurry to get to the coast--the
old Nick's got into him, I reckon--is goin' by the express on the B. P.;
the train on the branch line that goes out there at two-ten connects
with it, and so does the accommodation freight at two-forty. It's hard
on Billy--he hates to miss any of Jimmy Grayson's speeches, but he's
bound to go."
Harley was touched by real sorrow. He drew his pencil-pad from his
pocket, hastily wrote a few lines upon it, pushed his way to the stage,
and thrust what he had written into Mr. Grayson's hands. The speaker,
stopping to take a drink of water, read this note:
"DEAR MR. GRAYSON,--The Denver Express is two hours and a half
late. For God's sake speak until it comes; you will hear it at
three, when it pulls into the station. It is a matter of life and
death, and while you are speaking don't take your eye off the
little man with the whiskers, who has been with us all day, and who
always stands in front and looks up at you. I'll explain everything
later, but please do it. Again I say it's a matter of life and
death.
"JOHN HARLEY."
Grayson looked in surprise at Harley, but he caught the appealing look
on the face of the correspondent. He liked Harley, and he knew that he
could trust him. He knew, moreover, that what Harley had written in the
note must be true.
Grayson did not hesitate, and, nodding slightly to Harley, turned and
faced the crowd, like a soldier prepared for his last and desperate
charge. His eyes sought those of the little man, his target, looking up
at him. Then he fixed Plover with his gaze and began.
They still tell in the West of Jimmy Grayson's speech at Weeping Water,
as the veterans tell of Pickett's rush in the flame and the smoke up
Cemetery Hill. He had gone on the stage a half-dead man. He had already
been speaking nineteen hours that day. His eyes were red and swollen
with train dust, prairie dust, and lack of sleep. Every bone in him
ached. Every word stung his throat as it came, and his tongue was like a
hot ember in his mouth. Deep lines ran away from his eyes.
But Jimmy Grayson was inspired that night on the black prairie. The
words leaped in livid flame from his lips. Never was his speech more
free and bold, and always his burning eyes looked into those of Plover
and held him.
Closer and closer pressed the crowd. The darkness still rolled up,
thicker and blacker than ever. Grayson's shoulders sank away, and only
his face was visible now. The wind rose again, and whistled around the
little town and shrieked far out on the lonely prairie. But above it
rose the voice of Grayson, mellow, inspiring, and flowing full and free.
Harley looked and listened, and his admiration grew and grew. "I don't
agree with all he says," he thought, "but, my God! how well he says it."
Then he cowered in the lee of a little building, that he might shelter
himself from the bitter wind that was searching him to the marrow.
Time passed. The speaker never faltered. A half-hour, an hour, and his
voice was still full and mellow, nor had a soul left the crowd. Grayson
himself seemed to feel a new access of strength from some hidden source,
and his form expanded as he denounced the Trusts and the Robber Barons,
and all the other iniquities that he felt it his duty to impale, but he
never took his eyes from Plover; to him he was now talking with a force
and directness that he had not equalled before. Time went on, and, as if
half remembering some resolution, Plover's hand stole towards the
little old silver watch that he carried in the left-hand pocket of his
waistcoat. But just at that critical moment Grayson uttered the magical
name, Wall Street, and Plover's hand fell back to his side with a jerk.
Then Grayson rose to his best, and tore Wall Street to tatters.
A whistle sounded, a bell rang, and a train began to rumble, but no one
took note of it save Harley. The two-ten on the branch line to connect
with the 'Frisco Express on the B. P. was moving out, and he breathed a
great sigh of relief. "One gone," he said to himself; "now for the
accommodation freight."
The speech continued, but presently Grayson stopped for a hasty drink of
water. Harley trembled. He was afraid that Grayson was breaking down,
and his fears increased when he saw Plover's eyes leave the speaker's
face and wander towards the station. But just at that moment the
candidate caught the little man.
"Listen to me!" thundered Grayson, "and let no true citizen here fail to
heed what I am about to tell him."
Plover could not resist the voice and those words of command. His
thoughts, wandering towards the railroad station, were seized and
brought back by the speaker. His eyes were fixed and held by Grayson,
and he stood there as if chained to the spot.
Time became strangely slow. The accommodation freight must be more than
ten minutes late, Harley thought. He looked at his watch, and found that
it was not due to leave for five minutes yet. So he settled himself to
patient waiting, and listened to Grayson as he passed from one national
topic to another. He saw, too, that the lines in the speaker's face were
growing deeper and deeper, and he knew that he must be using his last
ounces of strength. His soul was stirred with pity. Yet Grayson never
faltered.
The whistle blew, the bell rang, and again the train rumbled. The
two-forty accommodation freight on the branch line to connect with the
'Frisco Express on the B. P. was moving out, and Plover had been held.
He could not go now, and once more Harley breathed that deep sigh of
relief. Twenty minutes passed, and he heard far off in the east a faint
rumble. He knew it was the Denver Express, and, in spite of his
resolution, he began to grow nervous. Suppose the woman should not come?
The rumble grew to a roar, and the train pulled into the station.
Grayson was faithful to the last, and still thundered forth the
invective that delighted the soul of Plover. The train whistled and
moved off again, and Harley waited in breathless anxiety.
A tall form rose out of the darkness, and a woman, middle-aged and
honest of face, appeared. The correspondent knew that it must be Susan.
It could be nobody else. She was looking around as if she sought some
one. Harley's eye caught Grayson's, and it gave the signal.
"And now, gentlemen," said the candidate, "I am done. I thank you for
your attention, and I hope you will think well of what I have said."
So saying, he left the stage, and the crowd dispersed. But Harley
waited, and he saw Plover and his wife meet. He saw, too, the look of
surprise and then joy on the man's face, and he saw them throw their
arms around each other's neck and kiss in the dark. They were only a
poor, prosaic, and middle-aged couple, but he knew they were now happy
and that all was right between them.
When Grayson went to his room, he fell from exhaustion in a half-faint
across the bed; but when Harley told him the next afternoon the cause of
it all, he laughed and said it was well worth the price.
They obtained, about a week later, the New York papers containing an
account of the record-breaking day. When Harley opened the _Monitor_,
Churchill's paper, he read these head-lines:
GRAYSON'S GAB
HE IS TALKING THE FARMERS OF THE WEST TO
DEATH
TWENTY-FOUR SPEECHES IN TWENTY-FOUR
HOURS
HE TALKS FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS IN ONE DAY,
AND SAYS NOTHING
But when he looked at the _Gazette_, he saw the following head-lines
over his own account:
HIS GREATEST SPEECH
GRAYSON'S WONDERFUL EXHIBITION OF PLUCK
AND ENDURANCE
AFTER RIDING FOUR HUNDRED MILES AND MAKING
TWENTY-THREE SPEECHES HE HOLDS
AN AUDIENCE SPELLBOUND FOR
THREE HOURS AT HIS
TWENTY-FOURTH
SPEAKS FROM MIDNIGHT UNTIL THREE IN THE
MORNING IN THE OPEN AIR AND NOT A
SOUL LEAVES, THOUGH A BLIZZARD
WAS RAGING
Harley sighed with satisfaction.
"That managing editor of mine knows his business," he said to himself.
VIII
SYLVIA'S RETURN
Harley slept late the next day, and it was the heavy, somewhat nervous
slumber of utter exhaustion, like that which he had more than once
experienced in the war on the other side of the world, after days of
incessant marching. When he awoke, it was afternoon on the special
train, and as he joined the group he was greeted with a suppressed
cheer.
"I understand that you stayed the whole thing through last night, or
rather this morning," said Churchill, in a sneering tone. "There's
devotion for you, boys!"
"I was amply repaid," replied Harley, calmly. "His last speech was the
most interesting; in fact, I think it was the greatest speech that I
ever heard him make."
"I fear that Jimmy Grayson is overdoing it," said the elderly Tremaine,
soberly. "A Presidential nominee is not exactly master of himself, and I
doubt whether he should have risked his voice, and perhaps the success
of his party, speaking in that cold wind until three or four o'clock
this morning."
"He just loves to hear the sound of his own voice," said Churchill, his
ugly sneer becoming uglier. "I think it undignified and absurd on the
part of a man who is in the position that he is in."
Harley was silent, and he was glad now that he had said nothing in his
despatch about the real reason for Grayson's long speaking. He had had
at first a little struggle over it with his professional conscience,
feeling that his duty required him to tell, but a little reflection
decided him to the contrary. He had managed the affair, it was not a
spontaneous occurrence, and, therefore, it was the private business of
himself and Mr. James Grayson. It gave him great relief to be convinced
thus, as he knew that otherwise the candidate would be severely
criticised for it both by the opposition press and by a considerable
number of his own party journals.
But there was one person to whom Harley related the whole story. It was
told in a letter to Sylvia Morgan, who was then at the home of the
candidate with Mrs. Grayson. After describing all the details minutely,
he gave his opinion: he held that it was right for a man, even in
critical moments weighted with the fate of the many, to halt to do a
good action which could affect only one or two. A great general at the
height of a battle, seeing a wounded soldier helpless on the ground,
might take the time to order relief for him without at all impairing the
fate of the combat; to do otherwise would be a complete sacrifice of the
individual for the sake of a mighty machine which would banish all
humanity from life. He noticed that even Napoleon, in the midst of what
might be called the most strenuous career the world has known, turned
aside to do little acts of kindness.
He was glad to find, when her reply came a few days later, that she
agreed with him at least in the main part of his argument; but she
called his attention to the fact that it was not Mr. Grayson, but Harley
himself, who had injected this strange element into the combat when it
was at its zenith; her uncle James had merely responded to a strong and
moving appeal, which he would always do, because she knew the softness
of his heart; yet she was not willing for him to go too far. A general
might be able to turn aside for a moment at the height of the battle,
and then he might not. She wished her uncle James to be judicious in his
generosity, and not make any sacrifice which might prove too costly
alike to himself and to others.
"She is a compound of romance and strong common-sense," thought Harley,
musing over the letter. "She wants the romance without paying the price.
Now I wonder if that is not rather more the characteristic of women than
of men."
On the day following the receipt of this letter, a look of joy came over
the face of the candidate and there was a visible exhilaration
throughout his party. Men, worn, exhausted, and covered with the dust of
the great plains, began to freshen up themselves as much as they could;
there was a great brushing of soiled clothing, a hauling out of clean
collars, a sharpening of razors, and a general inquiry, "How do I look?"
The whole atmosphere of the train was changed, and it became much
brighter and livelier. It was the candidate himself who wrought the
transformation, after reading a letter, with the brief statement, "Mrs.
Grayson and Sylvia will join us to-morrow."
All had begun to pine for feminine society, as soldiers, long on the
march, desire the sight of women and the sound of their voices. It is
true that they saw women often, and many of them--some who were
beautiful and some who were not--as they sped through the West, but it
was always a flitting and blurred glimpse. "I haven't got an impression
of the features of a single one of them," complained the elderly beau,
Tremaine. Now two women whom they knew well and liked would be with them
for days, and they rejoiced accordingly.
It was at a little junction station in eastern Colorado, in the clear
blue-and-silver of a fine morning, that Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia met
them. Mr. Grayson and his party had been down about fifty miles on a
branch line for a speech at a town of importance, and they had begun the
return journey before daylight in order to make the connection. But when
the gray dawn came through the dusty car-windows, it was odd to see how
neat and careful all appeared, even under such difficult circumstances.
Harley was surprised to realize the eagerness with which he looked
forward to the meeting, and put it down to the long lack of feminine
society. But he wondered if Sylvia had changed, if the nearer approach
of her marriage with "King" Plummer would make her reserved and with her
outlook on the future--that is, as one apart.
He had a favorable seat in the car and he was the first to see them. The
junction was a tiny place of not more than a half-dozen houses standing
in the midst of a great plain, and it made a perfect silhouette against
the gorgeous morning sunlight. Harley saw two slender figures outlined
there in front of the station building, and, despite the distance, he
knew them. There was to him something typically American and typically
Western in these two women coming alone into that vast emptiness and
waiting there in the utmost calmness, knowing that they were as safe as
if they were in the heart of a great city, and perhaps safer.
He knew, too, which was Sylvia; her manner, her bearing, the poise of
her figure, had become familiar to him. Slender and upright, she was in
harmony with the majesty of these great and silent spaces, but she did
not now seem bold and forward to him; she was clothed in a different
atmosphere altogether.
There was a warm greeting for Mr. Grayson and the hand of fellowship for
the others. Harley held Sylvia's fingers in his for a moment--just a
moment--and said, with some emphasis:
"Our little party has not been the same without you, Miss Morgan."
"I'm glad to hear you say it," she replied, frankly, "and I'm glad to be
back with all of you. It's a campaign that I enjoy."
"It can be said for it that it is never monotonous."
"That's one reason why I like it."
She laughed a little, making no attempt to conceal her pleasure at this
renewed touch with fresh, young life, and, because it was so obvious,
Harley laughed also and shared her pleasure. He noticed, too, the new
charm that she had in addition to the old, a softening of manner, a
slight appeal that she made, without detracting in any wise from the
impression of strength and self-reliance that she gave.
"Where did you leave 'King' Plummer?" he asked, unguardedly.
"In Idaho," she replied, with sudden gravity. "He is well, and I believe
that he is happy. He is umpiring a great quarrel between the cattlemen
and the sheepmen, or, rather, he is compelling both to listen to him and
to agree to a compromise that he has suggested. So he is really enjoying
himself. You do not know the delight that he takes in the handling of
large and rather rough affairs."
"I can readily guess it; he seems to have been made for them."
But she said no more of "King" Plummer, quickly turning the talk to the
campaign, and showing at once that she had followed every phase of it
with the closest and most anxious attention. Mrs. Grayson had walked on
a little and was talking to her husband, but she glanced back and saw
what she had expected. She and her husband turned presently in their
walk, and she said, looking significantly at Harley and Miss Morgan:
"It is a great pleasure to Sylvia to be with your party again."
There was such a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate
exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh,
nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked
more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, as if he were not
wholly pleased at what he saw.
"It's a free world," he said, "but I am glad that 'King' Plummer will be
with us again in a few days."
But his wife, able to see further than he, merely looked thoughtful and
did not reply.
Harley's solitary talk with Miss Morgan was brief; it could not be
anything else under the circumstances; Hobart, with all sail set, bore
down upon them.
"Come! Come, Harley!" he cried, with the perfect frankness that usually
distinguished him, "we don't permit any selfish monopolists here. We are
all cast away on a desert island, so to speak, and there are a lot of us
men and only two women, one of whom is mortgaged!"
Then he was welcoming Miss Morgan in florid style; and there, too, was
the ancient beau, Tremaine, displaying all his little arts of elegance
and despising Hobart's obvious methods; and Blaisdell, and all the
others, forming a court about her and giving her an attention which
could not fail to please her and bring a deeper red to her cheeks and a
brighter flash to her eyes. It seemed to Mrs. Grayson, looking on, that
the girl had been hungry for something which she had now found, and in
finding which she was happy, and, despite her sense of loyalty, she felt
a glow of sympathy.
But the sense of duty in Mrs. Grayson was strong, and while she
hesitated much and sought for mental excuses to avoid it, she wrote a
long letter to "King" Plummer that evening in the waiting-room of a
little wayside hotel. In many things that she said she was beautifully
vague; but she told him how glad she was that he would join them so
soon; she spoke of the quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen as
a closed affair, and complimented him on his skill in bringing it to an
end so quickly; it was all the better because now he could come to them
at once, and she boldly said how much Sylvia was missing him. But when
she sealed and addressed the letter she reflected awhile before dropping
it in the box on the wall.
"Now, ought I to do this?" she asked herself. "Have I the right to
hasten or to divert the course of affairs?"
She decided that she had the right, and mailed the letter.
"King" Plummer came a few days later--he said that he "just blew in a
few days ahead of time"--and received a hearty welcome from everybody,
which he returned in double measure in his broad, spontaneous way. He
placed a sounding kiss upon the somewhat flushed brow of Sylvia Morgan,
and exclaimed, "Well, my little girl, aren't you glad to see me ahead of
time?" She replied quickly, though not loudly, that she was, and then he
announced that he would stay with them for a long while. "These are my
mountains," he said, "and I'll have to show you the way through them."
"King" Plummer, although inclined to be masterful, was admitted at once
into the full membership of the party, and he entered upon what he
called his first long vacation. He showed the keenest enjoyment in the
speeches, the crowds, the enthusiasm, the travelling, and the
quick-shifting scenes. He was a boy with the boys, but the watchful Mrs.
Grayson noticed a shade of difference between Sylvia with the "King"
present and Sylvia with the "King" absent. With him present there was a
little restraint, a slight effort on her part to watch herself; but with
him away there was great spontaneity and freedom, especially with the
younger members like Harley and Hobart, and even Churchill, who
reluctantly admitted that Miss Morgan was a fine girl, "though rather
Western, you know."
Mrs. Grayson began to take thought with herself again, and the thought
was taken with great seriousness. Had she been right in bringing "King"
Plummer on so soon, although he did not even know that he was brought?
She resolutely asked herself, too, how much of her action had been due
to the knowledge that the "King" was a very important man to her
husband, controlling, as he probably could, the vote of several mountain
states. This question, which she could not answer, troubled her, and so
did the conduct of Sylvia, who, usually so frank and straightforward,
seemed to be suffering from a strange attack of perverseness. For years
she had obeyed "King" Plummer as her protector and as the one who had
rightful control, but now she began to give him orders and to criticise
many things that he did, to the unlimited astonishment of the "King,"
who had never expected anything of the kind.
"What is the matter with Sylvia? I never knew her to act in such a way
before," he said to Mrs. Grayson.
"As she is to be your wife, and not a sort of ward, she is merely giving
you a preliminary training," replied the candidate's wife, dryly.
"King" Plummer looked at her in doubt, but he pondered the question
deeply and was remarkably meek the next time Sylvia scolded him, whereat
she showed less pleasure than ever. "King" Plummer was still in a maze
and did not know what to say. The very next day he found himself deeper
in the tangle, being scolded by Mrs. Grayson herself.
They were waiting at a small station for some carriages which were to
take them across the prairie, and, the air being clear and bracing, they
stood outside, where Miss Morgan, as usual, held an involuntary court. A
cloud of dust arose, and behind it quickly came a great herd of cattle,
driven with much shouting and galloping of horses by a half-dozen
cowboys. The herd was passing to the south a few hundred yards from the
station, but Sylvia, thoroughly used to such sights, was not interested.
Not so some of the others who went out to see, and among them was "King"
Plummer, who began at once to calculate the number of cattle, their
value, and how far they had come, all of which he did with great
shrewdness.
The "King's" absorption in this congenial occupation was increased when
he recognized the leader of the cowboys as an old friend and former
associate in Idaho and Montana, with whom he could exchange much
interesting news. Borrowing a horse from one of the men, he rode on with
them for a mile or two.
Mrs. Grayson had seen "King" Plummer leave the group about Sylvia, and
she marked it with a disapproving eye. She would have spoken to him
then, but she had no chance, and she watched him until he borrowed the
horse and rode on with the cowboys. Then she looked the other way and
saw two figures walking up and down the station platform. They were
Sylvia and Harley, engrossed in talk and caring not at all for the
passage of the herd. The two brown heads were not far apart, and Mrs.
Grayson was near enough to see that Sylvia's color was beautiful.
The candidate's wife was annoyed, and, like any other good woman, she
was ready to vent her annoyance on somebody. She walked out a little
from the station, and presently she met "King" Plummer coming back. He
dismounted, returned the horse to its owner, and approached her, the
sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes lighting up his brown face.