CHAPTER IV
THE DUKE AT BAY
After that outburst Presson went away by himself to sulk. Young Thornton made no further protest. He stared at his grandfather, trying to comprehend what it meant—this bitterness, this savage resentment, this arbitrary authority that took no heed of his own wishes. He had always known a calm, kindly, sometimes caustic, but never impatient Thelismer Thornton. This old man, surly, domineering, and unreasonable, was new to him. And after a little while, worried and saddened, he went away. His presence seemed to stir even more rancor as the moments passed.
Presson understood better, but could not forgive the bullheadedness that seemed to be wrecking their political plans. His own political training had taught him the benefits of compromise. He was angry at this old man who proposed to go down fighting among the fallen props of a lifetime of power. And even though Presson now understood better some of the motives that prompted the Duke to force young Harlan out into the world, his political sensibilities were more acute than his sympathy.
Therefore the beleaguered lord of Canibas was left to fight it out alone.
He stood at the end of the porch and listened to the menacing sounds of the village.
He glared down the long street and grunted, "Grinding their knives, eh?"
Evidently the centrifugal motion of the political machine down there was violent enough to throw off one lively spark. A man came up the road at a brisk gait, stamped across the yard, and went direct to the Duke, who waited for him at the far end of the porch. He did not glance at Presson or at Harlan Thornton.
"Did you ever see anything like it, did you ever hear anything like it, Honor'ble?" the new arrival demanded with heat. "They're goin' to make a caucus out of it—a caucus!"
The man had a lower jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip between snaggy teeth. He spat the tip far.
"Yes, sir, by jehoshaphat, a caucus!"
Chairman Presson's ear had caught the sound of politics. He felt that he was entitled, ex officio, to be present at any conference. He hurried to the end of the porch.
"We ain't had a caucus in this district for more'n forty years," stated the new arrival, accepting the chairman as a friend of the cause. "Except as the chairman catches the seckertery somewhere and then hollers for some one to come in from the street and renominate the Honor'ble Thornton. But, dammit, this is going to be a caucus." The word seemed suddenly to have acquired novel meaning for him. "They must have been pussy-footin' for a month. You could have knocked me down with your cigar-butt, Squire, when I got in here to-day and found how she stood. If it hadn't been for War Eagle Ivus and his buck sheep breakin' out, they'd have ambuscaded ye, surer'n palm-leaf fans can't cool the kitchen o' hell. But even as it is—hoot and holler now, and tag-gool-I-see-ye, they say they've got you licked, and licked in the open—that's what they say!" The man's tone was that of one announcing the blotting-out of the stars.
"Walt Davis bragged about it," said the old man, outwardly calm, but eyes ablaze. "It must be a pretty sure thing when he's got the courage to crawl out from under the wagon and yap."
"Good God!" blurted the chairman of the State Committee, "you don't mean to tell me!"
"It's the ramrodders! They've been up here, one or two of the old cock ones, workin' under cover," stated the unswerving one. "About once in so often the people are ripe to be picked. They've mebbe had drought, chilblains, lost a new milch cow, and had a note come due—and some one that's paid to do it tells 'em that it's all due to the political ring—and then they begin to club the tree! But standing here spittin' froth about it ain't convertin' the heathern nor cooperin' them that imagine vain things. Now here's what I've done, grabbin' in so's to lose no time. I—"
"No, just tell me what the other side has done," commanded the Duke.
"First place, they've got names in black and white of enough Republicans to down you in caucus. They've got 'em, them ramrodders have! I've hairpinned the truth out o' the cracks! They've been sayin' that you've only wanted your office so as to dicker and trade, and make yourself and them in your political bunch richer; they're showin' figgers to prove that much; sayin' you brag you carry our district in your vest-pocket; sayin' everything to stir up the bile that's in every man when you know how to stir for it. Furthermore, Squire, the fact that you're gettin' out yourself and proposin' to put your grandson in gives 'em their chance to say a lot. Next place, this is goin' to be a caucus. It ain't any imitation. They're goin' to use a marked check-list."
"What?" roared the Honorable Thelismer, jarred out of his baleful calm.
"Yes, sir! They've pulled the town clerk into camp and have had him mark a list. And you can imagine who they picked out as Republican voters in this town! And they'll stand and challenge every one else till their throats are sore. You and me has cut up a few little innocent tricks in politics in our time, Squire, but we never framed anything quite as tidy as this for a steal. If your friend, here, is in politics, he—"
"I'm Presson, chairman of the State Committee," explained that gentleman. The Duke of Fort Canibas was too much absorbed to make presentations.
"Hell! That so?" ripped out the other, frankly astonished. "Well, I'm glad you're here. You ought to be able to help us out."
Presson was not cheerful or helpful. "They're slashing this whole State open from one end to the other with their devilish reform hullabaloo," he said.
"I hear there is quite a stir outside," agreed the agitator, blandly. He looked the chairman up and down with interest. "You may call me Sylvester—Talleyrand Sylvester. Yankee dickerer! Buy and sell everything from a clap o' thunder to a second-hand gravestone. It brings me round the country up here, and so I've been the Squire's right-hand man in the political game, such as there's been of it." He turned his back on the pondering Duke and continued, sotto voce: "I reckon if he'd stayed in himself, Colonel, they wouldn't have had the courage to tackle him. They might have hit him with that whole stockin'ful of mud they've been collectin', and he wouldn't have staggered. But when they go to hit the young feller, there, with it, he's down and out."
"Eh!" barked the magnate of Canibas, catching the last words. "I am? Not by a—" He broke off, ashamed of wasting effort in mere boasts. "Presson," he went on, evidently now intent on proceeding according to the plan that he had been meditating, "you've got your own interest in seeing me keep this district in line, haven't you?"
"You're the head of our row of bricks," bleated the chairman. "We've got to keep you standing—got to do it."
"Then we'll get busy." The old man threw back his shoulders. "Carrying a caucus the way we've probably got to carry this one at the last gasp isn't going to be a genteel entertainment." He tapped a stubby finger on the honorable chairman's shirt-front. "I'm going to raise some very particular hell." He turned to his lieutenant. "The boys right in the village, here, our own bunch, are all right, of course, Sylvester?"
"Stickin' to you like pitch in a spruce crack, as usual. It's the outsiders from the other sections in the district. They hadn't known what a caucus was till them ramrodders got after 'em."
"Can't they be handled now that they're in here?"
"Have been lied to already too skilful and thorough. Me and Whisperin' Urban and a few others of the boys blew the haydust out of their ears, and tried to inject the usual—but they can't hold any more. They've got to be unloaded first—and there ain't time to do it."
"And you're pretty sure they can swing the organization when the caucus is called?" demanded the Duke.
"Two to one—and our men ain't got a smell on that check-list they've doctored. Why, they've even got me marked 'Socialist.' You can imagine what they've done to the rest of the boys. It's one o'clock now." (He had looked at four watches, one after the other, a part of his dickerer's stock-in-trade.) "In an hour and fifteen minutes they'll be organized and votin' by check-list. I ain't a man to give up easy, Squire, but I swear it looks as though they had us headed so far on the homestretch that we ain't near enough to trip 'em or bust a sulky wheel on 'em."
"You've got more than an hour's leeway." It was a soft lisp of sound that startled the group. The man had come by devious ways through the gullies of the Thornton field, around the corner of "The Barracks," and upon the porch. Those who knew him declared that "Whispering Urban" Cobb never walked by the straight way when there was a crooked one by which he could dodge around.
"No, they can't get a-goin' at no two o'clock," he assured them. A drooping gray mustache curtained his mouth, drooping gray eyebrows shaded his eyes, and he crowded very close to them and whispered, "I've stole the call for the caucus, and they'll hunt for it about half an hour, and then they'll have to round the committee up and get 'em to sign another, and have constables swear that the other call was posted—and, well, they won't get going much before four."
The Duke looked at him indulgently.
"I took it on myself to do it. I reckoned you might need the extra time, seein' that they was tryin' to spring a trap on you."
He took the cigar that the Duke offered him in lieu of praise.
"Bein' sure of that much time—if you'll see to it that they're regular about the call!" Mr. Cobb cocked inquiring eye at the old man.
"I'll see to it," stated Thornton, grimly.
"Well, then, bein' sure of that time, I'll—Mr. Thornton, would you object if I was to start in this afternoon on the contract of clearing up that slash where you operated on Jo Quacca last winter? Of course, this ain't just the best kind of weather for bonfires, but—the fire will certainly burn!" His whispering voice gave the suggestion ominous significance.
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton stared for a moment at Cobb, and then looked up at the heights that shimmered in the beating sun.
"You may start in, Cobb," he said at last. His perception of what the man meant came instantly. He had hesitated while he figured chances. "Take fifty of those men out behind there," his thumb jerked over his shoulder. "Give every man a shovel, and see that it doesn't get away from you. More smoke than fire, see!"
Mr. Cobb hastened away.
The duller comprehension of the chairman of the State Committee had not grasped the significance of the conversation.
"I'd let business wait till politics are finished, Thelismer," he chided.
"There is such a thing as running the two on a double track," returned Mr. Thornton, serene but non-committal. He whirled on Sylvester, his mien that of the commander-in-chief disposing his forces in the face of the enemy: "Talleyrand, you'll find fifty more quedaws out there after Cobb takes his pick. Take them down to Aunt Charette's and have her set out her best. And keep 'em well bunched and handy!"
He reached through an open window and filled the pockets of his crash suit with cigars from a box on a stand.
"Now, Luke," he invited, blandly, "let's go to a legislative district caucus. I haven't bothered to attend one for a good many years, but this one on the docket now gives signs of being interesting."
They walked down the dusty road toward the village. The State chairman was silent, with the air of a man pondering matters he does not understand; but the Hon. Thelismer Thornton beamed upon all he met. Having a certainty to deal with, and a tangible enemy in sight, he seemed at ease. He felt like one who has recovered from dizzying blows and is on trail of the enemy who dealt them. He was himself again.
A few of those he met he greeted with especial cordiality. To some he gave cigars, not with the air of one seeking favor, not with the cheap generosity of the professional politician, but with the manner of one taking paternal interest in the conduct of a good child. It was an act that seemed to go with his handclasp and smile. He caught the State chairman looking at him rather doubtfully on one of these occasions.
"The folks understand this thing up here," he said. "When those chaps were young ones I used to give them a stick of candy. Now that they are grown up I hand 'em a cigar—got into the habit and can't stop. Or else I send 'em around to Aunt Charette's and have it put on my account. Wicked performance, I suppose, and so the old ladies tell me. But I was born in the old rum-and-molasses times, Luke, when the liquor thing sort of run itself, and didn't give so many cheap snoozers a job on one side or the other."
"What's this Aunt Charette's you're talking about?" asked the chairman.
"An institution!" The Duke enjoyed the puzzled stare the little man rolled up at him. "I reckon you think you've solved the liquor question in this prohibition State at that hotel bar of yours, Luke. I've solved it in my own way up here. Aunt Charette's is an institution that I've founded. Come and look at it."
He led the way off the main street. There was a cottage at the end of a lane, tree-embowered, neat with fresh white paint and blinds of vivid green. An old man sat in an arm-chair under one of the trees. He wore gold earrings and an old-style coat with brass buttons.
"Uncle Charette," explained the Duke, as they passed him. "Simply a lawn ornament."
He led the way into the house without knocking.
"And this is Aunt Charette," he volunteered. In the centre of the spotless fore-room a ponderous woman rocked in her huge chair and knitted placidly. She was a picture of peaceful prosperity in black silk gown and gold-bowed spectacles.
"And here's the nature of Aunt Charette's institution." He pointed to an open cupboard in which there were many bottles.
"Oh! your local liquor agency," hazarded the chairman.
"No, sir! Aunt Charette's own dispensary for the ills of the mind and fatigues of the body, and run according to my own notions. It beats your bar and white jackets, Luke, or that solemn farce of cheap liquors and robber prices of the State agency system. You come in here, if you are not a drunkard or a minor or a pauper—and Aunt Charette knows 'em all—and you go to the cupboard and get your drink, or you go out there in the store-room and get your bottle, and hand the change to Aunt Charette and walk away. No other rumshop tolerated in the section, and pocket peddlers run out of town on a rail! No treating, no foolishness, no fraud. Pays her fine twice a year without going to court, the same as you. And no extras!" He smiled at the chairman significantly.
"No extras, eh!" mused Mr. Presson, enviously. "You must have a different crowd of county officers than we've got down our way."
"Perhaps so," admitted the old man, and then he allowed himself a bit of a boast; "but the secret is, you see, this little institution is something I've taken under my own wing."
It was an ill-starred moment for that honest boast. There came a thumping of feet in the hall. The man who burst in was flushed and sweating and excited.
"I'm glad you're here, Squire," he panted. "You're just in the nick o' time. They're going to jump on the old lady."
"Who's going to jump?"
"High Sheriff Niles and his posse. They ain't more'n ten rods behind, jigger wagon and all."
The Duke of Fort Canibas stared a moment at the herald. Aunt Charette raised her eyes to her protector with the air of one secure under the wings of a patron saint, and went on knitting.
"Gad!" hissed the State chairman. "They certainly do mean you this time, Thelismer! Discrediting your pull in county politics an hour before your caucus! Some one is showing brains!"
Thornton did not answer.
"How in blazes have they pulled over the sheriff?" demanded Presson. But the old man merely stared at the door.
High Sheriff Niles entered at that moment. He stood on the threshold and scowled. He was a stocky man, who had been a butcher. His face was blotched by ruddiness resembling that of raw meat. Behind his cockaded silk hat pressed the faces of his aids. The little yard was filled with men who peered in at the windows. A big truck wagon was creaking as its horses backed it to the door.
"What are you after here, Niles?" demanded Thornton. "After this stock of rum."
The Duke took another swing across the room, licked his lips, and set his extinguished cigar hard between his teeth. He was striving to control the wrath that came boiling up into his purple face and blazing eyes.
"There's the warrant!" The sheriff clapped the paper across his palm.
"Take the stuff, boys!" He waved his hand at the cupboard.
"But the most of it's in the cellar," shrilled the voice of a tattler in the hallway. "There's where she keeps it!"
"I don't need any advice," growled the sheriff. His men trudged into the room and made for the cupboard.
Now at last Aunt Charette understood that her stores were threatened. She did not leave her chair. She fumbled frantically at her big bag that hung at her waist.
"Non, non!" she cried. "Yo' may not to'ch! I have pay! I have pay for nex' sax month."
She flapped a paper at the sheriff. He took it perfunctorily. "That's all right, old woman, but it hasn't got anything to do with my business here. I'm after your stuff on a warrant." He gave back the paper and started for the stairs leading to the cellar.
"But I have pay," she vociferated. "You tell them I have pay, M'sieu' Thornton! You' told me if I have pay twice in ye'r I have de privilege—de privilege!"
The sheriff turned and grinned over his shoulder into the convulsed face of the Honorable Thelismer.
"There's a lot of bargains in politics, marm," he stated, dryly, "that takes more'n two to put 'em through when the pinch comes." He enjoyed the discomfiture that her artless confession brought to the Duke. The old man looked him up and down. That this Niles whom he himself had helped into office, who had been taking private toll from the liquor interests of the county as his predecessors had before him, a procedure condoned by the party leaders of whom the Honorable Thelismer was one—that this person should whirl on him in such fashion was a performance that Thornton could not yet fully understand. But there was the fact to contend with. A man he had helped to elevate was engaged in humiliating him in the frankly wondering gaze of his own community.
Those who peeped in at doors and windows were not, all of them, enemies. There were friends who sympathized and were astonished. Their murmurings told that.
"You infernal Hereford bull!" roared Thornton; "don't you dare to slur me before my people. You're making this raid because I haven't buttered you with ten-dollar bills to keep your hands off. You've taken 'em from all the other rumsellers—but this isn't one of your regular rumshops."
"That's right, Squire. Give it to him," muttered men at door and windows.
"We all know how the sheriff's office is run in this county." This statement was made by Talleyrand Sylvester, who came thrusting through the jam of the hall into the fore-room. "Squire," he whispered, hoarsely, "I've brought down them quedaws as you told me to. They're outside. Say the word and we'll light on that old steer in the plug-hat!"
For an instant there was a glint in the old man's eyes which hinted that the word would be given. But the impulse was merely the first reckless one of retaliation. Assault on law, even as represented by such an unworthy executive as he knew Niles to be, would make too wicked a story for slander to handle. Slander would be busy enough as it was.
He pushed the eager Sylvester to one side.
"Let me see your warrant, Niles," he requested. The officer passed it over, with a touch of sudden humility in his demeanor. "I'm only doing my duty as it's laid out by the statutes," he muttered. He quailed under the old man's eyes. He did not like the sound of the mumbling at the windows nor relish the looks of the men who had just come flocking into the yard at the heels of Sylvester.
"'Twas sworn out and passed to me," stated the sheriff.
"Sworn out on complaint of Tom Willy." He looked above the document and saw in the doorway the man who had cried information regarding the liquor in the cellar. "Tom Willy, the cheapest drunkard we've got in the town, taking sneaking revenge because he has been shut off from privileges here that decent men haven't abused! But I tell you, gentlemen, even Tom Willy isn't as cheap as the men who have sneaked behind him and prodded him on to do this. There's some one behind him, for Tom Willy hasn't got brains enough nor sprawl enough to do this all by himself."
He gave the warrant back to the sheriff. He had recovered his self-possession. He was again their Duke of Fort Canibas, who could retire with dignity even from such a position as this. "Go ahead and train with your crowd, Sheriff Niles," he drawled, sarcastically—"Tom Willy, and whoever they are behind him that are too ashamed to show themselves!"
He started for the door, Luke Presson at his heels. Aunt Charette, not exactly understanding, realized that the protecting aegis was departing.
"But I have pay!" she wailed. "You have de power, M'sieu' Thornton! They take my properties!"
He patted the shiny silk of the old woman's shoulder as he passed her.
"Keep your sitting, Aunt Charette," he advised, "and let them take it.
It will be a good investment for you—leave it to me."
He lighted a fresh cigar out-of-doors.
"Luke," he declared quietly between puffs, "this is developing into quite a caucus day—take all trimmings. I'm glad you are here to look on!"
CHAPTER V
A CAUCUS, AS IT WAS PLANNED
The town house of Fort Canibas needed no guide-board that day. All roads led to it. Thelismer Thornton walked down the main street, his following at his heels. His hands were behind his back, and he sauntered along like one who was at peace with the world. His face was serene once more. He seemed to have recovered all the genial good-nature that men associated with Thelismer Thornton. The chairman trotted on short legs at his side, looking up at him sourly. Thornton smiled down at him.
"Finding your old State campaign sicker than you thought for, hey,
Luke?"
He was now as Presson had always known him, but the little man did not seem to be consoled thereby.
"I'd like to know what's come over you to-day?" he complained. "Giving a helpless little girl hell-an'-repeat, and then standing for what you did back there right now!"
"Luke, both of us have seen a great many men lose their dignity fighting hornets. But I've come to myself, and I've stopped running and swatting. Well, Briggs, what is it?"
The man who had brought the alarm to Aunt Charette's was crowding close, plainly with something to say.
"I only wanted to tell you, Squire, that Sheriff Niles brought in word to the boys that high-uppers was back of him."
"Thinks he's running with the pack, eh? Well, Briggs, that's hardly news about Bart Niles."
"Thought I'd warn you, Squire. He says things ain't goin' on runnin' in this State the way they have been runnin'. Way he talks, him and them back of him think they've got you layin' with all four paws in the air. But we in the village here, that's behind you, don't understand it that way. Nor we can't figger what started it."
"Don't bother your heads about it to-day, Briggs. Simply stand by and be ready to grab in, you and the boys. That's all."
The post-office was in the lower story of the town house. The walls were brick to the second story. This upper part was a barn-like structure propped on the lower walls. Broad outside stairs led up to it.
Thornton and Presson were obliged to push their way through a crowd to reach the foot of the stairway. They were stopped there by an obstruction. Some men were lifting off a low wagon a cripple in a wheel-chair. He had an in-door pallor that made him seem corpselike. A man in a frock-coat and with a ministerial white tie was bossing the job.
The Duke stopped and gazed on the work amiably. The man of the white tie scowled.
"Raising a few reliable Republicans from the dead, are you, elder?" inquired the Duke, pleasantly.
The elder did not reply until he had started the cripple's chair bumping up the stairs. Then he turned on Thornton. He was not amiable.
"It's time some of the voters with honest convictions got a chance to attend a caucus in this district, even if they have to be brought from beds of pain."
Thelismer Thornton did not lose his smile.
"I'd like to have you meet the Rev. Enoch Dudley, evangelist, Luke. This is Mr. Presson, chairman of the State Committee, elder. Now that you're getting into politics you'd ought to be acquainted with your chief priest."
But Rev. Mr. Dudley, not approving the company that the State chairman was keeping, did not warm up.
"I thank you for your pleasantries, Mr. Thornton," he returned, stiffly. "I hope your sneers may make you as many votes to-day as they have in the past."
"Well, they won't," blurted a voice from a knot of men at the foot of the stairs. "We're getting woke up in this district. And it ain't going to be an empire any longer."
"I'm rather too humble a man, sir, to associate with the high lords of politics," Mr. Dudley remarked to the chairman. "The Honorable Thornton has always been up there. I'm simply one of the plain people."
"And it's time for the plain people to have their innings," declared another in the crowd.
"The pack is off!" muttered the Duke in Presson's ear.
"Why don't you introduce him right," called another. "Reverend Dudley is the next representative from this district, Mr. Chairman. And we know where he stands!"
"An humble little platform is mine," stated the minister. "But it's down where all can step aboard with me. That's all I can say."
There was a growl of approval in chorus from the larger group at the foot of the stairs. Thornton's men were at one side and looked troubled.
"War Eagle" Ivus Niles stepped forth then. He had recovered his buck sheep. He was hoarse, but still full of zeal.
"I want to ask you this, Tyrant Thornton: You ain't quite so sure that you're Lord Gull, monarch of all you survey, since my brother Bartholomew showed you the power of the law triumphant, are you?" But the taunt did not alter the tolerant smile on the Duke's face.
"Go ahead and get in all your yelps," he said, under his breath. "A hound loves company."
"When we start in to purify, we propose to purify in good shape!" cried another. "And a reverend elder ain't a mite too good for us as representative to the legislature."
"Some people think they are purifying when they burn a rag," observed the Duke, serenely. He lighted another cigar, beaming through the smoke on the glowering minister.
"Don't take that wrong, elder. I respect decency in politics. I respect men who are trying to clean things up. But before I'll let you disinfect me, I'll have to see your license and know what system you're using."
"You've got to fight the devil with fire!" roared the War Eagle.
"You mustn't steal my own plan of campaigning, Ivus. I've got a copyright on that."
He had been studying the situation there outside the town hall while he talked. Two men from the shire town, wearing the nickel badges of deputy sheriffs, stood at the foot of the stairs. A group of men that he knew to be his loyal supporters from his own village were standing at one side. He strolled over to them.
"Squire Thornton," said one, "we're barred out of this caucus. They won't let us up."
And still their leader was imperturbable. He turned inquiring gaze on the Reverend Dudley, and that gentleman declared himself with suspicious haste.
"This is going to be a strictly Republican caucus, and the check-list has been marked," he said. "We don't propose to have Democrats come in and run our affairs for us."
It was a challenge thrown down in good earnest.
In spite of the warning that his scout had brought to him, the Duke had hardly believed that amateur politicians would go to this extreme. More than ever he realized that unscrupulous men higher up were using these tools. And it was plain that the instruments had been tutored to believe that the end justified the means. What Ivus Niles said about the devil and fire betrayed them.
The Duke walked over to the minister, and took him by the lapels of his coat.
"Elder," he protested, "I don't like to see a good man used for tongs in politics. There's a lot you don't know about this game. You're in wrong."
"You're not the right man to tell me so, Mr. Thornton. I represent reform. It's time we had it. And your gospel in politics isn't my gospel."
"You've got the revised version, Parson Dudley, if you find a text in it about splitting a caucus at the door of the hall."
"The sheep shall be divided from the goats, sir."
"You've got this caucus and the Judgment Day mixed, elder." He released the minister and stepped back. "I never yet talked rough to a parson. But you've cut loose from common sense. When you get down on a level with me at a caucus door you're no parson—you're a politician, and you'll have to let me say that you're a blasted poor one. You're Enoch Dudley, now. And I want to tell you, Enoch, that neither you nor any bunch of steers you happen to be teaming can keep legal voters out of that hall. As to whether this or that man can vote in the caucus, that will be settled when we get in there. But these men of mine are going in. It's up to you to decide whether they shall go in as lions or lambs."
"Violence shall rest on your own head!" cried the minister. "I'll see that the world knows about it."
"We'll see whose case shows up best when the report is made," retorted the Duke. "But I'm done arguing. Pull off those deputies." Sheriff Niles appeared at that moment. He had left his subalterns to store the confiscated liquors.
"Niles, pull your men off the door, here," commanded the Duke. "Your county politics hasn't any business at our caucus here to-day."
"I've been asked to keep this caucus regular, and I'm going to do it," insisted the sheriff.
"So am I," agreed Thornton. "So when the story goes out it will have to be said that you and I were working together to keep politics pure." The faithful Sylvester was hovering on the outskirts of the crowd. Thornton beckoned to him and he came. The Duke had probed the scheme and understood the stubbornness of the opposition. He was ready to act now.
"Sylvester, you're a constable of this town. Take those fifty woodsmen over there as a special posse. I'm going to stand here at the foot of these stairs, and see to it that this caucus isn't packed. If you see hand laid on me or on a respectable voter going up these stairs, you pile in with those men. Go ahead up, boys, one and all!" He stepped between the deputies and beckoned to the voters. He stood there like a lighthouse marking safe channel. He challenged both the sheriff and the minister with his gaze. "We've got peace in stock and fight on tap, gentlemen," he declared. "Full assortment, and no trouble to show goods."
The village loyalists trooped forward promptly and flocked up. The deputies made no effort to stop them. Niles did not issue orders. Threats and badges might cow voters. But he knew woodsmen. He was not prepared to fight fifty of them.
The opposition hurried up also. Men streamed past on both sides of the old man, looming there in his wrinkled suit of crash.
"Let 'em go. We've got him licked in the caucus anyway," growled Niles to one of his deputies. "The back districts are here two to one against his village crowd."
Chairman Presson stood at one side and waited. Harlan Thornton came to him, leading his horse through the crowd.
"You have influence with my grandfather, Mr. Presson. You have told me yourself that it's folly to try to send me to the legislature. I'm not fitted for such duties. I am interested only in our business. You have had a chance to talk with him since you left the house. Haven't you made him change his mind?"
"I don't know," confessed Mr. Presson. "He's got my opinion, but he doesn't seem to think it's worth much."
"Well, there's only one thing to do." stated Harlan, resolutely. "I'll stand up here and let the voters of this district know how I feel about it. I've got my own rights in this thing, grandfather or no grandfather."
"Harlan, my boy!" The State chairman laid his hand protestingly on the young man's arm. "You've got my sympathy in regard to your going to the legislature in this fashion. But let me say something to you. Thelismer Thornton is standing here to-day putting up as pretty a political fight as I ever looked on. I hope he'll change his mind about sending you. I'll talk with him again. But if you lift one finger now when he's got his back against the wall you'll be a disgrace to your family. Take that from me. You'd better hop on your horse and ride off where the air is better."
After a moment of sombre reflection the young man swung himself to the back of his horse and galloped away. The look that he got from his grandfather when he departed did not enlighten or reassure him.
The little square of the town house was pretty well cleared by this time. The voters had crowded into the hall. One of the last men to pass the Duke hesitated on the stairs and came back. He was a short, chunky, very much troubled gentleman. He had slunk rather than walked past. He came back with the air known as "meeching."
"I'm afraid you're going to misunderstand me, Mr. Thornton."
The Duke offered no opinion.
"I hardly know how to go to work to explain myself in this matter," faltered the apologist.
"Considering that I got your appropriation for your seminary doubled last session in the stingiest year since the grasshoppers ate up Egypt, I should think you'd find it just a little troublesome convincing me that Enoch Dudley has got any claim over my interests so far's you're concerned. What's the matter with you, Professor?"
He invited the State chairman toward them by a toss of his head. His tone had been severe, but there was humor in his eyes.
"This is Principal Tute, of the Canibas Seminary, Luke. You remember the cussing I got from the Finance Committee for holding up the bill till I got the Professor's appropriation doubled. He's trying to tell me how much obliged he is."
Mr. Tute looked very miserable.
"I've always said you were the best man this district ever had in the legislature. I've stood up and said that in the open, Mr. Thornton. You're an institution down to the capitol. When there was talk of a change for the sake of reform—and you know I'm teaching reform principles in my school, Mr. Thornton," he hastened on desperately; "I'm teaching sociological principles in accordance with the advanced movement, and if I don't practice what I preach I'm false to my pupils, and—"
"You're going to vote against me to-day, are you, Tute?"
"I've said right along we ought to bear with you so long as you lived and wanted to be elected."
"Like the seven years' itch, eh?"
"But you are trying to make us mere serfs in politics by dictating our choice, and what I teach of the principles of democracy—"
Thornton tapped the little man on the shoulder.
"What they've done, Tute, is come up here with a dose to fit the palate of every one of you fellows, and you don't know enough to understand that you're being handled. You're going to vote against me, are you?"
"I call on this gentleman to witness that I say you're the best man for the place. You're able, you're efficient, and you have done an immense amount of good for your constituents, and you—"
"But you won't vote for me to-day, eh?" reiterated the old man, pitilessly.
Mr. Tute started again on his line of fulsome praise, but the Duke checked him brusquely.
"That will do, Professor Tute. I like cake. I like it frosted. But I'll be d—d if I want it all frosting. Run up into the hall. Come along, Luke. We'll miss the text if we don't get in."
The last of the stragglers followed them up the stairs.
CHAPTER VI
A CAUCUS, AND HOW IT WAS RUN
The earlier arrivals had pushed the settees of the Fort Canibas town hall to one side. They were piled against an end wall. There were not enough of them to furnish seats for that mob. For that matter, voters seemed to have no inclination to sit down that day. There was barely enough standing-room when all had entered the hall.
Through them, friends and foes jostling each other, the Duke took his leisurely way. Presson was close behind him.
The rostrum, elevated a few feet above the main floor, was enclosed by boarding that came almost to the shoulders of those who stood within. Thornton, arrived at the front of the hall, put his shoulders against the boarding, shoved his hands into his trousers pockets, and gazed into the faces of his constituents. He was still amiable. But Presson sulked. It was hot in there, and the proletariat was unkempt and smoked rank tobacco.
"It's worth your while just the same, Luke," advised Thornton, in an undertone. He was conscious of the chairman's disgust, and it amused him. "They're going to have real caucuses in this State this year, they tell me. And this seems to be a nice little working model of the real thing. Better study it. It'll give you points on 'popular unrest,' as the newspapers are calling it."
The men in the pen above them were having an animated discussion. They were the members of the town committee. Thornton craned his neck and looked up at them. One of his loyal friends was there.
"What's the matter, Tom? Why not call to order?"
The man gave him a cautious wink before replying.
"There don't seem to be any copy of the call here, Squire. Some of 'em says we'll waive the reading of it. I say no. I say we don't want any holler to go out that this caucus wasn't run regular."
"It's only a 'technetical' point, anyway," protested one of the disputants.
"Well, I wouldn't allow too many of those 'technetical' points to get by in a caucus that you're ready to advertise under your reform headlines," advised the Duke. He settled himself against the boarding again. "Better give us straight work, boys."
It was not a threat. But it operated as effectually. A member of the town committee rapped for silence, and explained the situation rather shamefacedly. He asked the voters to be patient until the call could be prepared in the regular way.
"And now comes War Eagle Niles to help us kill time," observed Thornton. The agitator was pushing toward them. Men were urging him forward. It was evident that baiting their autocrat had become the favorite diversion of Fort Canibas' voters that day.
"Perhaps it was all right once for politicians to lead people by the nose, but it ain't all right now," stated Niles, as soon as he had squirmed into a favorable position for attack. "People didn't know, once. They didn't have newspapers, nor grange discussions, nor lecturers, nor anything to keep 'em posted. They let themselves be led."
"Don't let yourself be led, Ivus. You're more interesting as you are now, bolting with your head and tail up. But I wonder whether you know just what it was you shied at?"
"Know? You bet I know!" shouted the demagogue. "How about taxes? I'm paying more to-day on my little farm out back there than you're paying on a whole township of your wild lands. And don't you suppose I know how it's all arranged?"
"Why, Ivus, I suppose the chaps that have paid you to go around this district shooting your mouth off about 'tyrants' have supplied you with plenty of ammunition. Go ahead! I'd like to know how it was arranged, according to their notions."
"Who was that man that drove up to your house this morning in his devil machine, that cost more than my whole stand of farm buildings twice over—that man that's standing there beside you now, sneering at the voters of this State that he's been teaming? That's the Honor'ble Presson. He's chairman of the State Committee. He runs the big hotel down to the capital city. And where does he get money to buy automobiles with? I know. It's out of selling rum over his bar—and there's a law in the State constitution that makes selling rum a jail offence. But you don't see him in jail, do you?"
Astonishment that changed to fury nearly paralyzed the honorable chairman's tongue while Niles proceeded that far. When he did find his voice to protest, the War Eagle turned from him to the Duke like one who finds a weapon in each hand and becomes reckless.
"And no one sees you coming up and paying taxes on what you're really worth. It's all: 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours!' among the big fellows in this State. You can break all the laws you want to if you're in the right ring. And it's going to have a stop put to it!"
"Go ahead, Ivus!" encouraged his object of attack.
"If she's as sick as all that, she needs medicine quick. Get out your dose."
"The people is going to be reckoned with now," declaimed Niles, banging his knotted fist against the boarding.
"You mean of course The People—spelled with a capital T and a capital P, the same as you see it in those reform newspapers you've mentioned! Now, boys, I want you all to listen to me just one moment. You know I'm no hand to make speeches. But just let's talk this over. It'll take only a jiffy. There's a little time to kill while we're getting this caucus started regular. Now, some of these newspaper editors, who never get anywhere out of their offices except home to dinner, are writing a lot just now about THE PEOPLE—in capital letters, understand! Talking about 'em like as though they were a great force in politics—always organized and ready to support reform. Only needed to be called on. Fellows like Ivus here, that read and read and never bump up next to real things outside, get to think that The People make up an angel band that's all ready to march right up to the ballot-box and vote for just the right thing. Only have to be called on!"
The voters were crowding closer and listening. There was a half-smile on his face while he talked. He was not patronizing. But he took them into his confidence with simple directness.
"Boys, I don't know where you'll go to find that angel band!"
"The people of this State are gettin' woke up enough to know!" cried a voice. The man stepped forward. It was Davis. "I say to you again, Mr. Thornton, don't put us all on the plane of Ivus Niles."
The Duke was not ruffled by the interruption.
"Walt, I've been in politics a good many years. I was in the House in this State when Jim Blaine was there reporting for his newspaper. I want to tell you that when you get next to the real thing in politics you'll find that this people thing—the capital-letter idea—is a dream. Yes, it is, now! Don't undertake to dispute me! Here in one town you'll find a man or a set of men handling a bunch. A county clique handles another one. Some especial local interest makes this crowd vote one way; same thing will make another bunch in another town mad and they'll vote against it. It's all factions and self-interest, and you can't make it over into anything different. That's practical politics. Get out and you'll see it for yourself. You can swap and steer—that's politics. But as for uniting 'em into The People—well, try to weld a cat's tail and a tallow candle, and see how you get along!"
"It's high time we had less politics, then," cried Davis, "when politics lets the picked and chosen get rich selling rum or dodging taxes, and takes a poor man and pestles his head into the mortar till every cent is banged out of his pocket!"
"Davis, I'm patient with ramrodders when they're having an acute attack like you're having. It's the chronic cases I get after, the ones who are in it for profit, and have been poking you fellows up because they're paid for doing it. All of a sudden all of you are yapping at me because I've played the game. I'm talking business with you now. I suppose I might spread-eagle to you about our grand old State, and the call of duty and the noble principles of reform; I might fly up on this fence here and crow just as loud as any of those reform roosters, and not have any more sense in what I was saying than they do. I see you've got hungry for that revival hoorah. But I'm not going to perch and crow for the sake of getting three cheers! I'm going to stay right down here on the gravel with you, boys, and scratch a few times, and show you a few kernels, and cluck a little business talk. This district—you and your folks before you—has been sending me to the legislature for a good many years. I'm an ordinary man, and I've been against ordinary men down there at the State House. I should have played the game different with angels, but I couldn't find the angels."
He pointed through a window to a large building that occupied a hilltop just outside the village.
"Half the counties in the State were after that training seminary," he went on. "I beat the lobby, and got it. How much money do you and your neighbors make boarding the scholars? I have pulled out State money for more than a thousand miles of State roads in this county. I got the State to pay every cent of the expense of that iron bridge across the river. I lugged off bigger appropriations for my district than any other man who has been in the House—because I know the ropes and have the pull. I could have played angel, and not brought home a plum. Would that suit you?"
"I ain't detracting from what you got for us. But while you was dipping with your right hand for us, you was dipping with your left hand for yourself and them that trained with you," retorted Davis.
"And I wasn't to take any ordinary, human, business precautions about looking out for myself in any way, then?"
"You wasn't supposed to be representing yourself down there."
"For one hundred and fifty dollars every two years, and my mileage, I was to give up all my own business and my interests, and play statesman, pure and holy, for you up here? Refuse to help those men down there who helped me when I wanted something, and go down in the rotunda twice a day and thumb my nose at the portraits of the fathers of the State because they played politics in their time? That what you wanted me to do?"
"I've only got this to say," retorted Mr. Davis, afraid to argue: "You're proposing to jam your grandson down our throats, now that you've made your pile and got tired. You're going to have a man from this district that will do what you say and keep on flimflamming the people. I and them with me say no, and we'll show you as much in the caucus to-day."
"For the sake of having your own stubborn way—like most of the others that are howling about 'The People' in this State just now—you are ready to tip over this district's apple-cart, are you? Is that what you are trying to do? You take what I have given you, legislation and money that I've paid for labor in this section, and then propose to kick my pride in the tenderest place? I'll show you, Davis!"
"Well, show! We ain't a mite scared."
For some moments the throng in the town hall had shown waning interest in this discussion. There seemed to be matters outside that distracted the attention of those near the windows.
"There's a fire up Jo Quacca way!" called some one. The windows of town hall were high and uncurtained. All could see. Smoke, ominous and yellow, ballooned in huge volumes across the blue sky of the June day.
"There ain't no bonfire in that, gents," declared a man. "That fire has got a start, and if it's in that slash from that logging operation, it ain't going to be put out with no pint dipperful."
There was sudden hush in the big room. All men were gazing at the mounting masses that rolled into the heavens and blossomed bodefully over the wooded hills. Fat clouds of the smoke hung high and motionless. From the earth went up to them whirls and spirals and billowing discharges like smoke from noiseless artillery.
A man had climbed upon a window-sill of the hall in order to see more clearly.
"I tell you, boys," he shouted, "that's a racin' fire, and it's in that Jo Quacca slash! I, for one, have got a stand of buildin's in front of that fire."
He jumped down and started for the door. Several men followed him.
The chairman of the town committee began to shake a paper above his head.
"It's no time to be leaving a caucus," he pleaded. "We've fixed up a new call. We'll get down to business now."
"I know where my business is just this minute!" shouted the man who was leading the first volunteers. "And it ain't in politics."
The chairman tried to put a motion to adjourn, but at that moment the meeting-house bell began to clang its alarm.
"Save your property, you Jo Quacca fellows!" some one cried, and the crowd stampeded.
Thornton remained in his place in front of the rostrum. He noted who were running away. The deserters were the back-district voters—the opposition among whom his enemies had prevailed. The villagers remained. Here and there among them walked Talleyrand Sylvester. He was unobtrusive and he spoke low, but he was earnest.
When at last the chairman made his voice heard, Ivus Niles was shouting for recognition. That stern patriot had remained on guard.
"Maybe my house is burning, gents, but I ain't going to desert my post of duty till a square deal has been given. I call on you to adjourn this caucus till evening."
"Question!" was the chorus that assailed the chairman. The villagers crowded around the rostrum.
The motion to adjourn was voted down with a viva voce vote there was no disputing.
"It ain't just nor right!" squalled the War Eagle. "I'm here to protest! You ain't giving the voters a show! This thing shan't be bulled through this way!"
But that caucus was out of the hands of Mr. Niles and such as he, though some of the staunchest of Thornton's opposition had remained to fight.
Sylvester elbowed his way to the front, his followers at his back.
"I move, Mr. Chairman, that the check-list be dispensed with. It ain't ever been used in this caucus, anyway. And I'm in favor of hustling this thing so that we can all get up there and fight that fire. I don't believe in staying here caucusing, and let folks' property burn up."
The opposition howled their wrath. They understood all the hypocrisy of this bland assertion, but protest amounted to nothing. The voters were behind Sylvester. That gentleman promptly put in nomination the name of Harlan Thornton for representative to the legislature from the Canibas class of towns and plantations, and the choice was affirmed by a yell that made the protesting chorus seem only a feeble chirp. And then the caucus adjourned tumultuously.
Through it all Thelismer Thornton stood with shoulders against the boarding, that quizzical half-smile on his face. He walked out of the hall past the outraged Ivus Niles without losing that smile, though the demagogue followed him to the door with frantic threats and taunts.
The meeting-house bell still chattered its alarm, an excited ringer rolling the wheel over and over.
Chairman Presson, who had found speech inadequate for some time, followed the Duke to the stairway outside, and stood beside him, gazing up at the conflagration. Smoke masked the hills. Fire-flashes, pallid in the afternoon light, shot up here and there in the yellow billows rolling nearest the ground.
"I tell you, Thelismer, you'll never get across with this! It's too devilish rank!"
Elder Dudley marched past, leading the last stragglers of his following from the hall. His face was flushed with passion, but he had neither word nor look for the Duke. Even Niles was silent, bringing up the rear of the retreat, pumped dry of invective.
"You'll be up against Dudley, there, at the polls, running on an independent ticket. He's sure to do it!" went on Presson, watching them out of sight.
"You don't know the district," said Thornton, serenely. "And what's more important, I've got almost three months to meet that possibility in. I had only three hours to-day. You needn't worry about the election, Luke."
With his eyes still on the seething smoke vomiting up from the Jo Quacca hills he lighted a fresh cigar.
"There's something up there that's worrying me more. Cobb has got fire enough to break up a State convention."
Certain columns of smoke shot up, bearing knobs like hideous mushrooms. The knobs were black with cinders and spangled with sparks. The menace they bore could be descried even at that distance. A breeze wrenched off one of those knobs, and carried it out from the main conflagration. The roof of a barn half-way down the hillside began to smoke. Sparks had dropped there. After a time the two men could see trickles of fire running up the shingles.
"There goes one stand of buildings," announced Thornton.
"I swear, you take this thing cool enough!"
"Well, I'm not a rain-storm or a pipe-line, Luke. There's nothing more I can do. When Sylvester gets there with his crowd I'll have a hundred men or so of my own fighting it. And if a man sets fire on his land the law makes him pay the neighbors if the fire gets away and damages them. I'm prepared to settle without beating down prices. Let's go over to The Barracks."
Presson went along grumbling.
"You ought to have stayed in this fight this year for yourself, Thelismer. There was no need of all this uproar in ticklish times. A proposition like this makes the general campaign all the harder." He kept casting apprehensive glances behind at the swelling smoke-clouds.
"I'm paying the freight, Luke."
"There'd have been no fight to it if you'd stayed in yourself. Even your old whooping cyclone of a Niles, there, said that much. You've gone to work and got your grandson nominated, but between him and the bunch and that fire up there it looks to me as though your troubles were just beginning. Say, look here, Thelismer, honest to gad, you're using our politics just to grind your own axes with!"
"And you never heard of anybody except patriots in politics, eh?"
"When you prejudice a State campaign in order to break up a spooning-match and to give your grandson a course of sprouts outside a lumbering operation, you're making it a little too personal—and a little too expensive for all concerned."
The State chairman had his eyes on the fire again.
"As far as my business goes—that's my business," said the Duke, placidly. "As for the expense—well, I never got a great deal of fun out of anything except politics, and politics is always more or less expensive. When the bills get in for what has happened to-day I reckon I'll find the job was worth the price. You needn't worry about me, Luke—not about my failing to get my money's worth. For when I walk across the lobby of the State House, and they can say behind my back, 'There's old Thornton—a gone-by. Got licked in his district!' When they can say that, Luke, life won't be worth living, not if I've got thousand-dollar bills enough to wad a forty-foot driving-crew quilt!"
CHAPTER VII
WITH THE KAVANAGH AT HOME
When Harlan Thornton rode away out of the yard of the town house he was the bitterest rebel in the Duke's dominions. But he realized fully the futility of standing there in public and wrangling with his grandfather.
He understood pretty well the ambitious motive his grandfather had in forcing his will; Thelismer Thornton had urged the matter in the past. It had been the only question in dispute between them. And the young man had never resented the urgings. He appreciated what his grandfather hoped to accomplish for the only one who bore his name. But this high-handed attempt to shanghai him into politics outraged his independence. His protests had been unheeded. The old man had not even granted him an interview in private, where he could plead his own case. In business matters they had been co-workers, intimate on the level of partnership, with the grandfather asking for and obeying the suggestions the grandson made. On a sudden Harlan felt that he hardly knew this old man, who had shown himself contemptuous, harsh, and domineering. And then he thought of the girl who had been so grievously insulted in his presence, and he rode to find her.
His way took him across the long bridge that spanned the river. The river marked the boundary-line of his country. After that day's taste of the politics of his native land he felt a queer sense of relief when he found himself on foreign soil.
Beyond the little church and its burying-ground, with the tall cross in its centre, the road led up the river hill to the edge of the forest. Here was set Dennis Kavanagh's house, its back to the black growth, staring sullenly with its little windows out across the cleared farms of the river valley.
To one who knew Kavanagh it seemed to typify his attitude toward the world. He had seen other men clutching and grabbing. He had clutched and grabbed with the best of them. When one deals with squatter claims, tax titles, forgotten land grants and other complications that tie up the public domain, it often happens that the man who waits for the right to prevail finds the more unscrupulous and impetuous rival in possession, and claiming rather more than the allowed nine points at that. So Dennis Kavanagh had played the game as the others had played it. When one looked up at the house, with its back against the woods, staring with its surly window-eyes, one saw the resoluteness of the intrenched Kavanagh put into visible form.
The dogs came racing to meet Harlan. They knew him as their mistress's friend.
She was sitting on the broad porch-rail when he rode up, and he swung his horse close and patted her cheek as one greets a child. She smiled wistfully at him.
"Am I impudent, and all the things your grandfather said? I've been thinking it all over, Big Boy, as I was riding home."
"You're only a little girl, and he talked to you as he'd talk to one of our lumber-jacks," he burst out, angrily. "It was shameful, Clare. I never saw my grandfather as he was to-day. He has used me just as shamefully."
"I suppose I haven't had the bringing up a girl ought to have," she confessed. "I haven't thought much about it before. There was nothing ever happened to make me think about it. I was just Dennis Kavanagh's girl, without any mother to tell me better. I suppose it has been wrong for me to ride about with you. But you didn't have any mother and I didn't have any mother, and it—it sort of seemed to make us—I don't know how to say it, Big Boy! But it seemed to make us related—just as though I had a brother to keep me company. I suppose it has been wrong when you look at it the way girls have to look at such things."
He gazed on her compassionately. A few ruthless words had broken the spell of childhood.
There was shame in her eyes as she gazed up at him. He had seen the flush of youth and joy in her cheeks before—he had seen the happy color come and go as they had met and parted. But this hue that crept up over cheeks and brow made pity grow in him.
"He said—but you know what he said! And it isn't true. You know it isn't true. He shamed and insulted me because I'm a girl—and can't a girl have a friend that's tender and good to her?"
"A girl can," he said, gravely, "because I'm that friend, Clare. Perhaps my grandfather cannot understand. But I'll see that he does. We are to have some very serious talk together, he and I. I'm here to tell you, little girl, that I'm grateful because you sent that message into the woods to me. I'm not going to allow myself to be made a fool of in any such fashion; I'm not going to be sent to the legislature."
"Oh, I've been thinking—thinking how it sounded—all that I said," she mourned. "It all came to me as I was riding home—after what your grandfather said. I didn't realize what kind of a girl I must seem to folks that didn't know. But you know. It sounded as though I was claiming you for myself, when I didn't want you to go away. I'm ashamed—ashamed!" She averted her eyes from him. The crimson in her cheeks was deeper. It was a vandal hand that had wrecked the little shrine of her childhood. His indignation against Thelismer Thornton blazed higher.
But Dennis Kavanagh knew how to be even more brutal, for that was Dennis Kavanagh's style of attack. He came out upon the porch, a broad, stocky chunk of a man, with eyebrows sticking up like the horns on a snail, and the eyes beneath them keen with humor of the grim and pitiless sort.
"And how do you do to-day, Harlan Thornton?" he asked. "And how is that old gorilla of a grandfather of yours? Though you needn't tell me, for I don't want to know—not unless you can lighten me up a bit by telling me that he's enjoying his last sickness. But right now while I think of it, I have something to say to you, young Thornton, sir."
The young man stared hard at him. It was an unwonted tone for Kavanagh to employ. Clare's father, till now, had not included Harlan in his feud with the grandfather. He had always treated him with a brusqueness that had a sort of good-humor beneath it. His discourse with the young man had been curt and satiric and infrequent, and consisted usually in mock messages of defiance which he asked to have delivered by word of mouth to the grandfather. But his tone now was crisp and it had a straight business ring.
"My girl will be sixteen to-morrow. She is done with childhood to-day. Children may ride cock-horse and play ring-around-a-rosy. I haven't drawn any particular line on playfellows up to now. But there isn't going to be any playing at love, sir."
"I never have played at love with your daughter!" cried Harlan, shocked and indignant at this sudden attack.
"Well, I'm fixing it so you won't. We won't argue about what has happened, nor we won't discuss what might happen. All is, I don't propose to have any grandson of old Thornton mixed up in my family. I don't like the breed. You take that word back to him. I hear he's been making talk. He made some talk to-day. You needn't look at Clare, young man. She didn't tell me. But it came across to me mighty sudden. Others heard, too. What I ought to do is go over there and stripe his old Yankee hide with a horsewhip. But you tell him for me that that would be taking too much stock in anything that a politician in your politics-ridden States could say. That's all. You've got it, blunt and straight. And, by-the-way, I understand he's making a politician out of you, too, to-day? I'm taking this thing just in time!"
The young man and the girl looked at each other. It was a pitiful, appealing glance that they exchanged. Shame surged in both of them. In that gaze, also, was mutual apology for the ruthless ones who had dealt such insult that day in their hearing; there was hopelessness that any words from them to each other, just then, could help the situation. And in that gaze, too, there was proud denial, from one to the other, that anything except friendship, the true, honest comradeship of youth, had drawn them together.
Kavanagh eyed them with grim relish. The thought that he was harrying one of the Thorntons overbore any consideration he felt for his daughter, even if he stopped to think that her affection was anything except the silliness of childhood.
"Politics seems to be a good side-line for the Thornton family," Kavanagh remarked, maliciously. "If you can start where your grandfather is leaving off, you ought to be something big over in your country before you die!"
"I'm not interested in politics, Mr. Kavanagh, nor in my grandfather's quarrels with you."
"I am, though! Interested enough to advise you to keep to your own side of that river!"
"I'll admit that you have the right to advise your daughter about the friends she makes. But I don't grant you the privilege of insulting me before her face and eyes by putting wrong constructions on our friendship."
"Meaning that you're going to keep up this dilly-dally business whether
I allow you to or not?"
It was a cruel question at that moment. The girl was looking at him with her heart in her eyes. He had understood her pledge of loyalty given a moment before. Youth is not philosophic. She would misunderstand anything except loyalty in return.