THE RAMRODDERS RAMPANT
Though Mrs. Luke Presson was not especially interested in the practical
side of plain politics, yet it was a part of her social methods to make
tame cats of men of State influence as far as she was able. She did this
instinctively, rather from the social viewpoint than the political. Luke
Presson did not take her into his confidence to the extent that he
desired her to cultivate men of power for his own purposes. He only
dimly and rather contemptuously recognized that women had any influence
in political matters. But it did occur to him, after that State
convention, that perhaps he needed his wife to assist him in beginning a
reconciliation with General Waymouth.
Mrs. Presson came to him, directly the convention had adjourned. The few
men who were lingering in headquarters dodged out, for they perceived
that the chairman's wife had something on her mind.
He endured her indignant reproaches for some time. She taxed him with
betrayal of her personal interests.
"I've never tried to pry into your schemes. I don't care about them. But
when you make a fool of me in regard to the next Governor of this State,
you shall answer for it to me!"
"I did no such thing," he protested, wanting to placate her for private
reasons of his own.
"I say you did. You're chairman of the State Committee. You knew which
man would be nominated--you must have known it all along. You wouldn't
be State chairman if you didn't know that!"
The unhappy magnate was ashamed to tell her the bitter truth.
"You allowed me to come here to-day with Mrs. Dave Everett and her
daughters. Here is the bouquet I brought to present to her husband!" She
shook it under his nose and tossed it into a corner. "You never told me
a word about the plan to nominate General Waymouth. It was deliberate
deceit on your part--for what reason I cannot understand."
Presson tried to think of a story that would explain and shield him, but
the convention had not been an affair to promote clear thinking.
"Here's a legislative session at hand, and you've allowed me to stay
entirely out of touch with the next first gentleman of the State! I'm
like all the rest of the trailers, now. I haven't any prior social claim
on him. And I can't even find him at this late hour to offer my
congratulations."
"I haven't been able to offer mine, either," said the chairman, grimly.
"I'll endure no more of this foolery, Luke! If you propose to make a
plaything of your own wife from now on--"
"I'm telling you the truth. General Waymouth hurried out of the hall
before I could get to him. That devilish Canibas bull moose picked him
up, like he's been picking up--"
But the astonishment in his wife's eyes stopped him. He was revealing
too much of his secret.
"Why, Harlan Thornton went away with him--Thelismer's grandson! Some one
told me who saw them in the carriage together. What do you mean by
Canibas moose?"
"Can't you see that I'm all stirred up by the excitement of this
convention?" he demanded. "I don't know what I'm saying. I'll explain to
you later, Lucretia."
"I think you'd better. Where did General Waymouth go?"
"To the hotel, I suppose."
"No, he's not there. I have telephoned. Luke, we must have him at lunch
with us. It's his place to lunch with us--you're the chairman of the
State Committee! It's a late start for me--and it's your own fault
because it is so. But you must find the General and make him come to
luncheon. I have arranged for the party in the English Room at the
hotel. You _must_ have him there!" She hurried away to where the ladies
were waiting for her.
Presson, the politician's instinct of self-preservation now getting the
better of his rancor, promptly determined that his own interests would
be helped by his wife's luncheon-party, provided the victor could be
cajoled and coralled. He put pride behind him. It was not so easy to do
as much with his shame and the downright fear that assailed him when he
reflected on his plot and its outcome. But he decided that although
little might be gained for him by making up to the victorious General, a
great deal would be surely lost if the antagonism were emphasized.
He put on his hat and hurried to the street. Inquiry at the cab-stand
afforded him the information that General Waymouth and his companion had
not given a definite destination. "But there's the man who took them,"
said the manager. "He's just back. Ask him."
The driver said that he had dropped them at the park, at their request,
and the chairman jumped into the carriage, directing that he be conveyed
to the same place.
He found them sitting democratically on a bench, taking the air.
Without preliminary the chairman extended Mrs. Presson's invitation.
"There will be a very small party of us, and it may save you from the
annoyances of the public rooms," added Chairman Presson, humbly.
The General arose and accepted with cordiality, somewhat to Harlan's
surprise, for his unbending youth could not yet understand how political
hatchets could be buried so quickly.
"I want to congratulate you, General," said the chairman on the way to
the carriage. "And I want to tell you that the State Committee will
swing into line behind you for the campaign. You'll find us loyal.
There's a good deal more I'd like to say, but there'll be time enough
for that later. I'll merely say this: both of us have been in politics
years enough, I believe, to be able to wash a convention slate clean,
when it's a question of a State campaign against the opposite party."
"I'll meet you frankly on that plane, Mr. Presson. I have too much ahead
of me to waste time in quarrels. It isn't my nature to retaliate. I have
understood the situation better than some men would."
Harlan, hoping that the chairman appreciated that magnanimity, gave
Presson a look that expressed much. But in his new humility the latter
was getting rid of ancient grudges as fast as he could. While the
General was entering the carriage, the chairman offered rather
embarrassed apology. "But you introduced some original specialties in
politics that took me off my feet, young man!" he added, with a sickly
smile.
Harlan was still a little stiff. It was not easy for him to get into the
state of political pliability that he saw others assume so readily.
"I'm a countryman, and pretty awkward in most everything I undertake,"
he said. "I have no business meddling in the big affairs of this State.
I'll take my place where I belong, after this, Mr. Presson. If I don't,
I'll not have a friend left--not even my own grandfather."
The chairman glanced at him curiously, scenting something like duplicity
under this bitter frankness. He was not used to seeing men throw aside
such advantages as this young man had gained.
The three entered the hotel through the side door, and at the General's
request the chairman accompanied him and his young lieutenant to their
headquarters. It was near the luncheon hour, and Presson had suggested
that he conduct them to Mrs. Presson.
A party of men had taken possession of the General's suite. They rose
when he entered. They paid no attention to Harlan, but surveyed Chairman
Presson with disfavor that was very noticeable.
Several of the men were clergymen, advertised as such by their white
ties and frock-coats. Those who attended them had the unmistakable air
of zealots. Their demeanor showed that they had come on business that
they considered serious.
General Waymouth knew them. He addressed one or two by name, and was
gracious in his greeting of the others.
"We wait on you," began their spokesman, one of the ministers, "as a
committee from the United Temperance Societies."
"My time is not my own just now, gentlemen," explained General Waymouth.
"I have a luncheon engagement with Mr. and Mrs. Presson. I will see you
at some other time."
The faces of all of them grew saturnine at that announcement. For
Chairman Presson was not recognized as the especial friend of
prohibition by the fanatics of the State.
The clergyman, following his line of duty, was not in a mood to accept
delicate hints regarding social engagements. He stood his ground.
"Our business will occupy but a short time, and I suggest that it will
be for your personal interest to listen now, sir."
It was an unfortunate bit of obstinacy.
"I regulate my own hours for engagements, Mr. Prouty. You have come on
your own business, and it must await my convenience."
"It's _your_ business I come on, General Waymouth, and I advise you to
listen! And I will add that it will not help you with the temperance
people of this State if they are told that within two hours after your
nomination you are consorting with the arch-enemy of temperance reform
in our midst!"
With two strides the General was back at his door. He opened it.
"Be so kind as to leave the room, gentlemen," he invited, icily. "I'll
not detain you even to have you apologize for your intrusion on my
privacy or ask pardon of a guest whom you've insulted!"
They obeyed him, sullenly. Even their effrontery could not withstand
that dignity. But they muttered among themselves, and one man called
back over his shoulder: "It isn't the first time, General, that a man
brave enough to lead battle charges hasn't shown that he's got the
spirit to declare for the right against the wrong, when politics stands
by with open ears!"
"There go some of the reformers you were asking your grandfather about a
few weeks ago, Harlan," sneered the indignant chairman. "Those are the
men who are holding themselves up as examples for all the rest of men to
follow. Every one else is a rummy and a hellion, according to their
ranking."
"As bad an element as the rumsellers themselves," declared the
General--"men of that type! I'm speaking now of the interests of true
reform--reform that gets to the individual and is something else than
this everlasting wrangle and racket between factions. I like fighting,
but I like to have a natural fighter admit he's in it just for the sake
of fighting--not claim it's all for morality's sake!"
"Then what are you?" blurted Presson, but checked himself in evident
confusion.
"Eh?" inquired General Waymouth, mildly.
"I--I don't know what it was I had in my mind--guess I was thinking
about something else."
But the General smiled as though he understood. Then he went into the
inner room, explaining that he wished to make himself presentable to the
ladies.
The chairman took a crafty survey of Harlan.
"Between you and me, my boy," he said, getting back upon his old-time
footing with Thornton's grandson, "the General has got both of my eyes
put out, so far's his politics go. Did you hear him just rip into those
ramrodders? And yet he's been stiffer and straighter than the worst of
'em since he struck this city. I'd like to know who in thunder he _is_
playing with, anyway! What does he say to you, on the side?"
"You'd better get General Waymouth's plans from himself, Mr. Presson."
"I'm not asking you to betray anything. But he's got a policy, of
course. I only want to know it, so that I can grab in with him. But I
can't figure anything, so far."
"I thought he made himself pretty plain last night."
"He made himself plain, I'll admit that. Plain that he's against
everything that the party management stands for. But now he turns around
and kicks out the other crowd! He's got to pick his gait and take a
position somewhere!"
"That's something I know nothing about, sir."
The chairman grew testy. He felt that he was being played with.
"Seeing that you're in close to the Amalgamated Order of Angels, you'd
better drop him a hint that running a political campaign isn't like
stampeding a convention. The State Committee stands ready to help, and
before he gets much further along he'll find he needs the help. You'd
better make that plain to him."
His guest of honor reappeared then, and the chairman led the way. Harlan
had been included in his invitation, and attended his chief.
With old-fashioned gallantry, General Waymouth made his compliments to
the ladies whom Mrs. Presson had assembled to grace the occasion. Her
little crust of social earth had been tossed alarmingly by the political
earthquake, but she felt that now she was finding safe footing once
more.
Thelismer Thornton was there, so were Senator Pownal and the secretary
of the State Committee, and a few other favored ones whom the hostess
had sought as being close to the new order of things. She led forward
Linton.
"And now, General, we're all wondering just how nice a compliment you'll
pay to the orator whose eloquence makes you the next Governor of our
State," chattered the good lady, poorly informed as to real conditions,
but anxious to force a situation for her favorite. "Herbert has been so
modest about it! We've been telling him just how grand we thought it
was."
"I thank you, Linton, for what you said." The General took the young
man's hand. "You have wonderful gifts of eloquence."
But there did not seem to be the enthusiasm which the importunate Mrs.
Presson desired.
"With all due respect to your greatness, General, isn't it true that he
turned the convention--has made you Governor?" she insisted, half in
jest to cover her earnestness.
"If it comes about that I'm the next Governor of this State," he
returned, gently, "it will be due entirely to this young man." He patted
Harlan's shoulder affectionately. "Just how he has accomplished it is a
very deep political secret between us two. I present my grand vizier,
ladies and gentlemen!" They understood that seriousness lay behind his
whimsical manner of speech.
Two very round eyes testified to Mrs. Presson's amazement. But once more
she found her social feet after this echo of the main quake. She took
Harlan's hand, and placed it on the chair next to that of her daughter.
"You'll sit here, if you please, Mr. Thornton," she said, urbanely.
For a little while a trifle of embarrassment shaded the few words the
young couple addressed to each other, under cover of the general
conversation about the board. Then Harlan, glancing down the table, saw
Linton staring gloomily in his direction. And at that look his spirits
leaped like a steed under the spur. What he had not dared, considering
himself on his own merits, he ventured now. If vague, hidden sentiment,
as he had thought of Clare Kavanagh, had restrained him in the past, it
no longer restrained him now.
The excitement of the day had given him a queer exaltation. He had been
one of the chiefs in the arena where all the great State looked on at
the combatants. The overlord had just given him soul-stirring proof of
his affection, half in jest as Harlan realized, remembering the occasion
for it, but it was none the less gratifying. Madeleine Presson had
looked at him with strange, new interest in her gaze when the General
spoke out. It had occurred to Harlan that it was not the same
good-humored tolerance which she had so frequently shown in her past
relations with the bashful woodsman. His unquiet grudge against Linton
spiced the whole.
He turned to the girl.
She seemed altogether desirable. Something in her eyes responded to his
own feelings. And after that he seemed to be listening to himself
talking--and wondered at the new man he had become.
When it was over, and the ladies rose from the table to follow Mrs.
Presson, he tried, feeling guilty for a moment, to remember the look
that Linton had given him and to excuse himself as one who had simply
shown the proper spirit of revenge. But when he took her hand he said:
"My grandfather carried me away from you and your mother in very
ungallant fashion yesterday. And he tried to put ungallant words into my
mouth. I trust you'll allow me to disprove them. I'd like the privilege
of being your obedient squire on the trip home."
"So now that you've become a very big man you've decided that
grandfathers shall no longer be indulged in tyranny?" she asked, with a
dash of malicious fun.
"I view matters in a new light," he replied.
"And there's a wonderful psychology in light, so they who have studied
the matter tell us," she said, mischief in her eyes. "But we'll not go
so deeply into the matter. Let it be a light that will guide your
footsteps to our rooms at train-time. You will find us awaiting our
squire!"
General Waymouth excused himself as soon as the ladies had retired. The
little group of men had promptly begun to canvass the outlook and plans,
but he demurred politely when they desired to drag him into the
discussion.
"Not yet, gentlemen! We have had enough of talk in the last few hours.
Let me escape to the old brick house up in Burnside for a while. My
train goes shortly. Will you accompany me, Harlan?" It was the first
time he had used the young man's christian-name Harlan flushed with
pleasure. "I will see that you get back here in good season to bring
that guiding light," he murmured, to the other's confusion.
"I do not like to seem too exacting--too persistent in requiring your
attendance," protested the General, as they returned along the corridor.
The great hotel was nigh deserted. The delegates had hurried away on the
convention specials. "But you have protected me from a great many
annoyances, to put the situation mildly. I am calling you away now to
make a very special request of you. We will speak of it on the way to
the station."
Ranged in front of the door of his suite was the delegation from the
temperance societies, patiently waiting, more saturnine than before.
The Reverend Mr. Prouty intercepted them with determination.
"I do not like to seem too persistent in this matter, but we feel that
we have a right to a few moments of your time, sir. You are accepting
public office, and--"
"I do not care to have any lessons in politics read to me, Mr. Prouty.
State your business."
"We prefer to see you in private."
"And I prefer to have you talk before a reliable witness. Mr. Thornton
is such, and he is entirely in my confidence."
He did not invite them into his room.
"We represent the united temperance societies of this State," began the
clergyman.
"I understand perfectly," put in the General. "And in order that we may
thoroughly understand each other I will inform you that I know exactly
what corporate interests are furnishing money to you and your campaign
managers. I have been very careful to keep posted on these matters,
gentlemen!"
For a moment Mr. Prouty was visibly taken aback.
"It is necessary to finance even righteousness," he said, at last.
"Beyond question," admitted the General. "I only ask you to meet me on
the business basis where you belong. I'll not allow you to mask
factional interests behind religion or a moral issue. I don't mean to be
curt or disobliging, gentlemen, but you must get out in the open. You
have something to ask me? Ask it. You'll receive a plain answer."
"Do you intend to enforce the prohibitory law?"
"I question your good taste, Mr. Prouty, in selecting one law and asking
a prospective Governor whether he intends to do his sworn duty in regard
to it."
"But other Governors have not done so. We propose to have pledges after
this. We'll vote for no more nullifiers."
"Other Governors have had no direct power to enforce the law, sir. I had
no power when I was Governor. But I'll assure you that if I am the next
Governor I shall demand that power from the legislature, and I'll
enforce that law with all the resources of the State treasury. If it's
in the power of man to accomplish it, the sale of liquor shall be
stopped in this State."
They plainly had not expected that. His attitude toward them, his
association with the nullifier Presson had suggested that he intended to
carry out the usual "let it alone" programme. They applauded.
"One moment, gentlemen. That doesn't mean that I or any other man, or
that the prohibitory law, as we have it, or any other mere law, can stop
the drinking of liquor in this State. I'm speaking only of the open sale
of it. I know perfectly well that my attempt to make men sober by law
alone will fail miserably. As it is administered now, the law still
caters to appetite and public demand for privileges, and the public goes
along without especial disturbance. But as I shall enforce the
prohibitory law, conditions will be so intolerable in this State that
the way will be paved for a common-sense treatment of the liquor
question. I shall enforce in order to show how wrong the prohibitory
principles are. They have not been shown up so far, for the law has not
been enforced."
The delegates were disconcerted. The spokesman's face grew red.
"Do you dare, sir, as a candidate for Governor of a prohibition State,
to stand up here before these representatives of the temperance
societies and say you are opposed to prohibition?"
"I certainly do," declared the unruffled General. "For this State is not
a prohibition State! It fatuously thinks it is when the citizens can get
all the liquor they want without trouble. I merely propose to put it to
the test of honesty."
"You declare yourself an enemy, then, do you?"
"Mr. Prouty, there you launch yourself into your usual intemperance! At
the first word of another man's dignified difference of opinion you
shout 'enemy' and prepare to fight! I want to ask you and your
supporters here a question: Will you meet with representatives of all
the interests concerned in this matter, including the liquor men and
those who use liquor in its various forms, and endeavor to arrive at
some compromise in this State which shall put a stop to what is
practically civil war, in which we are expending all our energies
without accomplishing any real betterment of conditions? Will you agree
to some middle ground, if it can be shown that more men can be made
sober and less men hypocrites?"
"I stand solely for the principle of prohibition, unswerving till
death," announced the clergyman. His partisans applauded.
"You won't stop and listen to what may be for the actual best interests
of our State, then?"
"I'll not license crime nor compound felonies with criminals."
"Mr. Prouty, as Governor I signed the first prohibition law passed in
this State. It was on trial. I was liberal enough to bend my own
personal views to give it that trial. When I'm thinking of my State I
don't insist that _my_ way is the _only_ way. Now, sir, if you knew
that, as citizens, not mere partisans, we could all get together and
frame something better than a law that has bred evils of political
corruption through all the years without altering the appetites of the
people--if you knew that, wouldn't you remould some of your opinions and
help us bring about the best good for the whole of us?"
"I'll not abate my loyalty to prohibition one jot or tittle!"
"In your case and in the case of the kind of fanatics who train with
you," declared the General, with disgust in tone and mien, "that word
'prohibition' is simply a fetish--a rally-call for a fight. It is you,
sir, and such as you, who are holding this State back from real
progress. I'm not discussing the liquor question alone. I haven't
patience to discuss it with you. I'm referring to the spirit that
actuates you. Your kind sat as judges in the Inquisition. Prohibition
now offers an opportunity for your bigotry--that's why you cling to it.
You cling to it in spite of the fact that it has made more than
drunkards--it has made liars and thieves and perjurers and grafters out
of men who would not otherwise have been tempted. When men arise to tell
the truth about it, you get behind your morality mask and accuse them of
the basest motives and claim immunity for yourselves from attack in
return. I fear I am a little severe, sir, but your attitude showed that
you came to me with appetite for a quarrel."
"I'll see to it," declared Mr. Prouty, hotly, "that five hundred
ministers in this State denounce you from their pulpits as an enemy to
temperance."
"You don't know what temperance is!" General Waymouth brushed past them.
"Your definition slanders the word. I shall be glad to have your
support, gentlemen, at the polls. But I am for the State, not for your
faction or any other faction. I know you are not used to hearing a
candidate tell you the truth--it has not been the style in this State.
If the truth from me has shocked you, blame the truth, not me."
He ushered Harlan before him and closed his door upon the delegation.
"It's a sad feature of public affairs in this State, my young friend,"
said he, when they were alone, "that so large a mass of the people, who
naturally are sane and moderate, allow those paid agents of so-called
reform to serve as popular mouth-pieces. Reform for reform's sake
supersedes reform for the people's sake. Candidates have been afraid of
those mouths. Such mouths as those outside there assert that they are
talking for the whole people in the name of morality, but there are only
a few mouths of that kind. It is time to test it out. I propose to see
whether the people will not follow the real thing in honesty instead of
the mere protestation of it."
On the way to the station the General preferred his request. It was that
Harlan become his executive officer in the approaching campaign--his
chief of staff, his companion, his buffer, protecting him from the
assaults of the politicians.
"Before the campaign really opens there will be three weeks or so in
which you may attend to your own affairs. You remember that it was you
that dragged me into this, young man!" It was the old jest, but it had
taken on meaning within twenty-four hours. "You have seen with your own
eyes, heard with your ears, how I stand alone between factions which are
willing to sacrifice the State in order to win for their own interests.
I have planted my standard between 'em! I'll try to rally an army to it
that will leave the extremists of both those sides hopelessly deserted
by the rank and file of the honest citizens. I need you with me, for you
have been with me from the start, and you have shown your fitness" (he
smiled), "even to securing an audience with the Honorable Spinney. Is it
yes, my young friend?"
"It is yes, General Waymouth. I question my ability--I know it is poor.
But of my loyalty there is no question."
The General grasped his hand. They were at the car steps. "It shall be
'Boots and saddles!' three weeks from to-day!"
Linton was in the parlors of the hotel with the Presson party when
Harlan arrived, glowing with his new enthusiasm, confident in his new
elevation in the affairs of men. In the affairs of women he was not
quite as sure of his desires or his standing, but his mood was new, and
he realized it. He went straight to Madeleine Presson. Twenty-four hours
before the presence of Linton at her side would have held him aloof.
He put out his hand to the young lawyer, and Linton took it.
"I extend my congratulations rather late, but they are sincere. It was a
noble speech. You put in words my own thoughts regarding a noble man."
"Perhaps you could have expressed those thoughts just as well as I did."
Linton was not cordial.
"No, sir, not with a woodsman's vocabulary, though with such a text I
certainly should have felt the true inspiration."
"You'll have to claim considerable political foresight, even though you
cast doubt on your eloquence," said Linton, rather sourly. "I'll
confess that I jumped wrong. But I had my interests to protect. Let me
ask you--is General Waymouth offended, very much so, because I withdrew
my support this morning?"
"General Waymouth has not made any comments on the matter in my
hearing."
"I know you can explain to him--"
Harlan broke in, impatiently:
"I am not cheeky enough to advise such a man about picking his political
support. I beg your pardon, Miss Presson!" He bowed. He turned to
Linton. "I hope you won't open this subject with me again, Mr. Linton. I
am so loyal to General Waymouth that you cannot explain satisfactorily
to me any reasons why you should have deserted him to-day! You will see
now why the topic should not be referred to again between us."
Linton bristled.
"If you take such an unjust view of it as that, I certainly feel that
the matter should be referred to again between us--at the proper time!"
"I'd advise you to take my hint," retorted Harlan.
They stared at each other, eye to eye, both plainly wishing with all
heartiness that no feminine presence hampered them.
The girl laughed.
"Coffee and pistols for two! If each other's company makes you so
impolite, I'll be compelled to separate you. Come, Mr. Harlan Thornton,
baron of Fort Canibas, you have volunteered to see me safely home."
He offered his arm, and they followed Mrs. Presson, who had already
started for the carriage. He rode with them to the station, flushed and
silent, and the girl studied his face covertly and with some curiosity.
On the train, in the first of their tête-à-tête, she sounded him
cautiously, trying to discover if his feelings toward Linton were
inspired wholly by political differences. She seemed to suspect there
was something more behind it, even at the risk of flattering herself.
But she had detected certain suggestive symptoms in the demeanor of
Harlan at the breakfast-table that morning. He did not betray himself
under her deft questioning. But he promptly grew amiable, and before the
end of their railroad ride that day she had proved to her own
satisfaction that her ability to interest young men had not been thrown
away upon him. The light in his eyes and the zest of his chatter with
her told their own story. He left her at her home with a regret that he
did not hide from her.
And yet, when he was at last in his room at the hotel that night, he
wrote to Clare Kavanagh the longest letter of all those he had written
to her since he left Fort Canibas.
It might have been because he had so much to write about.
It might have been because a strange little feeling of compunction
bothered him.
But Harlan did not have the courage to examine his sentiments too
closely. Only, after he had sealed the letter and inscribed it, he lay
back in his chair awhile, and then, having reflected that after three
weeks he would no longer be his own man, he decided that he'd better run
up to Fort Canibas and attend to his business interests.
And he departed hastily the next morning, in spite of the Duke's puzzled
and rather indignant protests that business wasn't suffering beyond what
the telephone and mails could cure, and that he himself would go home
the next week and see to everything.
There are some men who are strong enough to run away from weakness. Not
that Harlan Thornton admitted that he was weak in the presence of
Madeleine Presson. But he felt a sudden hunger for the big hills, the
wide woods, the serene silences. He wanted to get his mental footing
again. He had been swept off in a flood of new experiences. Just now he
found himself in a state of mind that he did not understand.
"I'll go back and let the old woods talk to me," he whispered to
himself.
Then he tore up the letter he had written to Clare Kavanagh.
It had occurred to him that he could tell it to her so much better.
So when he came to Fort Canibas in the evening of the second day he
mounted his horse and rode across the big bridge.
He went before he had read the letters piled on the table in the gloomy
old mess-hall. And he brusquely told the waiting Ben Kyle to save his
business talk until the morning.