HARRISON ROBERTSON
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE OPPONENTS
 
 The Opponents 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRISON ROBERTSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "RED BLOOD AND BLUE,' 
 "THE INLANDER," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1902
 
 Copyright, 1902, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 All right! reserved 
 
 Published, April, 1902 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. ALTERNATIVES i 
 
 II. SIDNEY GARRARD AS A MONEY-MAKER . 10 
 
 III. "BENEATH HER FEET" 26 
 
 IV. "VERY, VERY NICE, OR HORRID" ... 40 
 
 V. A HOUSE is PAINTED 55 
 
 VI. AT TUNSTALL PADDOCKS 66 
 
 VII. THE HEAD AND THE WALL 72 
 
 VIII. A YOUNG FOOL 80 
 
 IX. THE ISSUE JOINED 92 
 
 X. A WINNING AND LOSING SPEECH . . . 108 
 
 XI. THE PRELIMINARY HAND-CLASP .... 124 
 
 XII. A HORSE-BLOCK SYMPOSIUM 138 
 
 XIII. THE QUEENIN' OF IT 150 
 
 XIV. THE CONQUEST OF THE QUEEN OF SHEBA'S 
 
 SUPERIOR 167 
 
 XV. SOME RAIDERS AND A THEORY .... 178 
 
 XVI. FROM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT .... 196
 
 vi Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. MARGARET HELM SHOCKS GOOD PEOPLE 203 
 
 XVIII. THE PENALTY 217 
 
 XIX. ANOTHER PENALTY 233 
 
 XX. THE LIGHT THAT BLASTS 250 
 
 XXI. LEVEL WITH THE EARTH 265 
 
 XXII. THE MORNING OF THE CONVENTION . . 277 
 
 XXIII. "THE OLD HICKORY OF LUTTROLL" . 288 
 
 XXIV. MORGAN TUNSTALL DECIDES HIS FUTURE 301 
 XXV. MORGAN TUNSTALL CARRIES OUT HIS 
 
 DECISION 310 
 
 XXVI. THE SUNLIGHT ON THE WALL . . . 325 
 
 XXVII. INTO THE COMING SPRING 340
 
 The Opponents
 
 The Opponents 
 
 ALTERNATIVES 
 
 " No. 7 three hours and twenty minutes late." 
 
 Morgan Tunstall stopped before the bulle 
 tin board in the Tenth Street Station and 
 stared at the chalked words. 
 
 Number 7 was scheduled to leave Louisville 
 at 2.35 P. M. and to reach Nashville at 7.50, 
 which, Tunstall calculated, would put him in 
 the Tennessee capital in time, if he dressed on 
 the Pullman, for the Fogg dinner. He wished 
 particularly to attend the Fogg dinner, for it 
 was given to celebrate the engagement of Tom 
 Lockwood to Miss Fogg, and Tunstall, being 
 happily married himself, was eager to testify 
 his joy at the good fortune of his old chum. 
 But if there was no train to Nashville for more 
 than three hours yet, the Fogg dinner was out 
 of the question, and satisfying himself by in 
 quiry that Number 7 was his only chance and 
 that the bulletin was correct, he left the station,
 
 2 The Opponents 
 
 his keen disappointment nettled by a feeling of 
 personal resentment against the unreliability of 
 railroad time-tables. 
 
 He went to his club and loafed there till din 
 ner, after which, with a friend, he crossed the 
 street to the theatre and spent two hours with 
 Jefferson's Bob Acres. 
 
 It was not long before midnight when he got 
 off a Fourth Avenue car and walked over to 
 Third, where his house was, in a fashion 
 able quarter of Louisville. He was twenty- 
 five, rich, well educated, travelled. Best of 
 all, in his estimation of Fortune's favors, he 
 was married to the woman he loved, and the 
 home he had built as the flower of his wealth 
 and taste was incomparably more to him than 
 that, because his inspiration had been the ma 
 terial expression of his devotion to her and 
 of his anticipation of the life they were to live 
 together, and because he felt that she had un 
 derstood and was glad, as he was glad, that 
 what he had done was his best, and had been 
 done for her. 
 
 As he walked away from the car his con 
 sciousness of a day gone wrong had something 
 in keeping with the depressing fog of the chilly 
 atmosphere, which seemed to asphyxiate the
 
 Alternatives 3 
 
 street-lights and, as he stepped from a pave 
 ment of concrete to one of brick, to disinte 
 grate the solid earth itself into a soggy sponge. 
 Not only had he missed the Fogg dinner, but 
 Grace, who had been disinclined to go, would 
 not be at home to-night, for she had insisted, 
 before he had started for the Tenth Street Sta 
 tion that day, that she would not brave the 
 loneliness of his absence, but would take one 
 of the afternoon trains from the First Street 
 Station and spend the night with friends in 
 Pewee Valley, a few miles out from the city. 
 
 Tunstall's pace was slow, his eyes on the 
 ground, and his healthy mind veering from his 
 irritating ill luck to the marked distinguishing 
 characteristics of brick sidewalks as affected by 
 the weather. In front of his own house he 
 raised his head from this study of brick side 
 walks, and his face suddenly glowed with a 
 smile. There were lights in Grace's window. 
 She had evidently reconsidered her plan to go 
 out to Pewee Valley. She was at home. After 
 all, the day had not ended so badly as it might 
 have done. 
 
 Tunstall eagerly sought his key and let him 
 self in. The hall and first-floor rooms were 
 dark. The house had been closed for the
 
 4 The Opponents 
 
 night. His unexpected return would be a 
 pleasing little surprise for Grace, as pleasing, 
 perhaps, he was happy to believe, as his find 
 ing her at home was for him. 
 
 His swift feet sank noiselessly into the soft 
 carpets of the hall and stairway. He was 
 quickly in front of Grace's door. But as he 
 clasped the knob a strange transformation 
 came over him. His hand on the knob was 
 motionless; his figure stiffened in an abruptly 
 arrested posture ; his strong young face grew 
 instantly stronger with the white, stony death 
 of its youth. In the murmur of talk coming 
 from his wife's room he recognized the low, 
 refined voice of Julius Knowles. 
 
 For a little Tunstall stood, inclined forward, 
 as one transfixed. Then he breathed again ; 
 a tinge of blood crept back into his face ; he 
 drew himself up slowly, and half turning in 
 his steps, faltered for a second and leaned with 
 his back against the door frame. He lifted his 
 hand uncertainly toward his collar, but its wav 
 ering course was suddenly checked as the 
 fingers closed tensely and the clenched fist 
 was rigidly extended. A dull purple now 
 dyed his skin, his chest deepened, and, as a 
 soldier who had heard the voice of command,
 
 Alternatives 5 
 
 he strode steadily across the hall, erect, with 
 fixed eyes, and disappeared through the op 
 posite doorway. 
 
 He returned almost immediately, with the 
 same martial step, with the same fixed eyes, his 
 right hand, which hung by his side, holding a 
 revolver. 
 
 He recrossed the hall to his wife's room, and 
 turned the knob. The door was locked. There 
 was an instant hush of the voices within. 
 Tunstall, his jaws set and his veins swelling, 
 braced his shoulder against the door and with 
 one determined strain forced it open. 
 
 As he stepped into the room, Grace, blanched 
 and trembling, was standing in the centre of it, 
 her hand on the arm of a chair, from which 
 she seemed to have just risen, her startled, 
 horrified eyes directed helplessly upon him. 
 Only for a moment did she look at him ; then 
 turning away, she threw her hands over her 
 face, and with a shivering moan sank to her 
 knees and bowed her head among the pillows 
 in the chair. 
 
 Julius Knowles, who, with sickened visage 
 and forehead dampening clammily, had been 
 standing a few feet behind Grace, never took 
 his stupefied eyes from Tunstall, and made no
 
 6 The Opponents 
 
 motion, except once to open his dry lips as 
 if to speak, when no audible word came from 
 them. 
 
 Tunstall did not stir for a full quarter min 
 ute after entering the room. The two men 
 faced each other silently. There was no sound 
 except the ticking of the clock and the flare of 
 a gas jet ; even the convulsive breathing of the 
 woman seemed to have ceased. 
 
 When Tunstall did speak he was standing 
 where he had stopped after breaking open the 
 door. His countenance was an expressionless 
 mask, his tones passionlessly inexorable. 
 
 " When I came in here," he said, " I intended 
 to kill you both. But instant death is too 
 merciful a fate for such as you. There ought 
 to be, and there is, a greater penalty. I am 
 going to give you the choice between them." 
 
 He paused a moment. There was not even 
 a tremor now in the intense stillness of Grace, 
 and Knowles made no sign, except the mo 
 mentary blinking of his eyelids as he held his 
 gaze on Tunstall. 
 
 " The alternatives I offer you," Tunstall went 
 on, "are these: either to be shot dead now, 
 here ; or to live together as husband and wife 
 in this city, until one of you dies."
 
 Alternatives 7 
 
 Grace had lifted her head an inch in alert 
 suspense. Knowles twisted his mustache with 
 a nervous hand, and, after a little, asked 
 huskily : 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Simply death, or life together. I shall kill 
 you both of you now; or you will elope 
 from this house to-night. You may go where 
 you please for a few weeks, until I have secured 
 a divorce. Then you will return to Louisville, 
 be legally married, and live together as hus 
 band and wife here, among those who know 
 you best and will be familiar with your story." 
 
 He was silent, awaiting some reply. 
 
 "Are you in earnest?" said Knowles un 
 certainly. 
 
 Tunstall waved his hand with a slight motion 
 of impatience. 
 
 " Understand me fully," he continued. " I 
 know you are a coward, Knowles. I presume 
 you are armed at this moment cowards of 
 your kind usually are. If you were a braver 
 scoundrel you might defend yourself and take 
 the chance of killing me and thus escape both 
 the alternatives I offer you. Do not make the 
 mistake of hoping that by agreeing to accept 
 now the second you may merely gain time to
 
 8 The Opponents 
 
 extricate yourself from my conditions. You 
 can never elude me. While you are away I 
 shall always be in touch with you through my 
 agents. You can go nowhere, at no time, that 
 they will not follow you. When you return to 
 spend your wedded lives in Louisville you will 
 always be under their secret surveillance, and 
 you can never leave for an hour without my 
 knowing it. They will never annoy you. They 
 will simply keep you always in sight and inform 
 me if you attempt to break your agreement. 
 In the end you can never escape both these 
 alternatives, except by my death. So choose, 
 with your eyes open." 
 
 Knowles now was more like himself. His 
 natural color was returning. For the first time 
 his eyes left Tunstall, and with a plausible 
 effort at coolness he took out his watch and 
 glanced at the hour. There was even a trace 
 of a smile on his lips as he spoke. 
 
 "You make it easy for me, Tunstall," he 
 said, still studying his watch. " As far as I am 
 concerned, it will be only a happiness for me 
 to agree to your second alternative." 
 
 "Very well," Tunstall replied. "But that 
 requires acceptance by two. And you ? " His 
 burning eyes were on his wife, whom an hour
 
 Alternatives 9 
 
 before he had idolized and whom now he could 
 not even address by her name. 
 
 Her back was still to him, but she raised 
 herself on her knees beside the chair. She did 
 not turn her head, nor speak. 
 
 " What is your choice ? " Tunstall demanded. 
 
 She took hold of the chair-arm and weakly 
 lifted herself to her feet. She made a groping 
 motion with one hand toward Knowles. 
 
 " We must go," she said feebly to Knowles. 
 
 Knowles went to her and supported her with 
 his arm ; the two moved toward the door, and, 
 as Tunstall stepped aside for them to pass, 
 they left the room and the house.
 
 II 
 
 SIDNEY GARRARD AS A MONEY-MAKER 
 
 A LITTLE more than twenty years later, on a 
 certain June morning, in a certain county of 
 Kentucky within fifty miles of Louisville, 
 Sidney Garrard, having finished a breakfast 
 that had been kept warm for him over-time, 
 stepped out on the porch, his hands in his 
 pockets, and a lazy whistle answering the 
 nickered greeting of Blitzen, saddled and 
 waiting him at the stile. 
 
 Beyond the grove in which the house was 
 set rolled, on one side of the lane, the pas 
 tures, green in the foreground, and merging 
 into smoky steel in the distance, dotted with 
 an occasional oak or sugar-tree and with 
 statue-like cattle, heads down. On the other 
 side of the lane, hedged with blackberry and 
 wild-grape vines, stretched a field of young 
 corn, whose pallid blades stirred above a 
 threatening growth of grass and weeds. Then 
 spread away, to the deep shades of creek and
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 1 1 
 
 ravine, the gold of ripened wheat, shimmering 
 in the sun and gently vibrating, perhaps to 
 an imagination more sensitive than Sidney 
 Garrard's just then, with the whir of the 
 reaper which throbbed faintly in the distance. 
 
 Sidney Garrard, in his twenty-sixth year, 
 bronze-skinned and clear-eyed, with the grace 
 of sound nerves and of physical vigor, was 
 not very imaginative this morning. He felt 
 a comfort which came of sufficient sleep, a 
 relished breakfast, perfect health, and the 
 knowledge that the day was before him, to be 
 disposed of as he liked. 
 
 He sauntered, bareheaded, out on the 
 lawn, where he was standing, a few moments 
 later, passing the conventionalities to his 
 appreciative fox-hounds, when Wash came 
 up the lane from the harvest fields. Wash, 
 black, middle-aged, and active, was the real 
 manager of the Garrard farm, and he was 
 walking with a quicker step than usual. 
 
 " Mawnin', Mr. Sid," he said cheerily, 
 touching his hat as he went through the 
 yard. 
 
 " Hey, Wash ! What 's up ? What 's your 
 hurry?" 
 
 " I gwine sen' one de chillun over to John-
 
 12 The Opponents 
 
 son's to see 'f I cain't git some er dem niggers 
 to he'p out in de wheat-fiel'," Wash explained, 
 pausing. " We 's sorter short to-day. Sim, 
 he 's sick, en Mose, he went en got married 
 ag'in las' night en he ain't been turned out de 
 calaboose yit dis mawnin'. Tears lak Mose 
 alluz tekin' a notion to git married ag'in des 
 sho 's I git in a pinch ; en rain ap' to come 
 up fo de week's out, to-boot" 
 
 " Oh, if you are in such hard luck I '11 help 
 you out myself till your reinforcements from 
 Johnson's reach you." 
 
 " Go 'long now, Mr. Sid," Wash laughed, 
 in his soft, whole-souled way. " Stop yo' 
 projeckin' wid me," walking on and wagging 
 his head. 
 
 " I '11 report to you in the wheat-field," 
 young Garrard assured him, " as soon as I 
 can dress more properly for the occasion." 
 
 Wash only looked back over his shoulder 
 and grinned. 
 
 " Mr. Sid, he feelin' mighty peart to-day," 
 he said to himself. 
 
 Mr. Sid went into the house, and in a few 
 minutes came out in an old suit of clothes and 
 a wide-brimmed straw hat, dilapidated and 
 drooping.
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 1 3 
 
 He mounted Blitzen, and as he turned down 
 the lane he was greeted with a ripple of 
 laughter from a young woman whose face 
 peered out at him over the hollyhock bushes 
 that lined the garden fence. 
 
 " What now, Sid ? " she called to him. 
 
 " Hullo, Kate ! " pulling up. " ' What now ' 
 is a job in the wheat-field ; I 'm one of Wash's 
 hands this morning." 
 
 " And do Wash's hands ride to work on 
 such blue-ribbon winners as Blitzen? " 
 
 " This one does ; and, what 's more, a-wear- 
 ing in his buttonhole the prettiest rosebud in 
 Mistress Kitty Cockerill's garden." 
 
 He rode up to the fence, and Kate Cock- 
 erill, smiling and glowing with pleasure, 
 plucked a half-blown Jacqueminot, and step 
 ping up on the bottom board of the fence, 
 reached up and placed the bud in the but 
 tonhole of his coat as he leaned over to 
 her. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, " that this is one of 
 those fortunate roses the poet tells about, that 
 got what they wanted because they ' dared to 
 climb.' " 
 
 " Perhaps," she returned in the same banter 
 ing spirit. "And I suppose what this one
 
 14 The Opponents 
 
 wants is a view of the promised spectacle of 
 Sid Garrard actually at work ! " 
 
 He laughed and galloped away, flinging back 
 at her a bar of a song, 
 
 " Oh, the red rose is a falcon ; " 
 
 while she, his widowed sister, and elder by a 
 year, followed his youthful figure with eyes in 
 whose fond smile was the light of a love that 
 was tenderly maternal. 
 
 Sid Garrard's work in the wheat-field was 
 only for an hour and that on a fairly com 
 fortable seat on the reaper when Wash's 
 reinforcements from Johnson's arrived, and Sid 
 mounted Blitzen and rode to the post-office at 
 Plover, the nearest village, three miles away. 
 
 There were perhaps a hundred houses in 
 Plover, scattered along a single street, and be 
 fore one of these built of rough brick, with a 
 wooden platform in front of it Sid Garrard 
 dismounted. A big board sign under the 
 eaves identified it as the establishment of 
 "Jaynes & Co., General Mdse. and Post-office." 
 Sid entered and exchanged jokes with Hi 
 Jaynes, pocketing a newspaper and reading a 
 letter which Hi handed him from behind the 
 glass-and-pine boxes of the post-office. When
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 15 
 
 he went out on the platform again, the street, 
 which five minutes before had been deserted 
 except for a few pigs and chickens, now pre 
 sented an added bit of picturesqueness, if not of 
 animation, lent it by the arrival of Dunk Pea- 
 body and his annual wagon-load of red June- 
 apples. Dunk, a thin, sallow countryman 
 " clay-bank " his complexion was described by 
 Uncle Jesse Craik sang out his wares in a 
 melancholy monotone, as he sat bent over the 
 front of a ramshackle wagon, loaded with apples, 
 above which rose a pollarded sapling, on the 
 stubs of whose cut branches stuck clusters of 
 the red fruit. 
 
 Dunk drew up in front of the post-office and 
 discontinued crying his apples, to address 
 Blitzen, who was showing, by flattened ears 
 and warning teeth, his disapproval of any 
 nearer approach of Dunk's team. 
 
 " I yi, you pompered plutycrat, you ! " 
 Dunk said in a conversational tone, " you thes 
 cain't natchully bear to have the plain people 
 come anigh you, now kin you ? " 
 
 " Morning, Dunk ! " called Garrard from the 
 platform. "What's the trouble between you 
 and Blitzen?" 
 
 " I ganny, that sounds like Sid Garrard !
 
 1 6 The Opponents 
 
 Come outn from under that hat an' lemme 
 see 'f 'taint. Say, what skylarkin' you up to 
 now, Sid ? Where 'd you git them clo'es ? " 
 
 " Where 'd you get that team?" Garrard 
 laughed. 
 
 " Well, you know I 'm thes boun' to have a 
 team 'bout this time o' year, when that old 
 apple-tree by the smoke-'ouse gits ready fer 
 business ; so I went to work an' borrid the 
 mare from Rufe Wright an' the mule from 
 Uncle Jesse Craik. Th' ain't no sich June- 
 apple in the county as that airn, but I mis 
 doubt me ef it pays fer the time an* labor. 
 I ganny ! it took me mighty nigh a week to 
 borry that team this year. Say, Sid, keep yo' 
 eye on 'em while I step in an' see 'f I c'n trade 
 Hi Jaynes a bushel of apples fer a jug of 
 m'lasses. Uncle Jesse Craik an' Rufe Wright 
 don't work overly well together yit been 
 a-shyin' at each other all mornin', seems like. 
 Though you cain't blame arry one of 'em spe 
 cially, fer they do look ruther skeercrowy to 
 be drove together 'thout blinkers, now don't 
 they? Say, you oughter seen 'em when they 
 fus got a good look at each other. Back 
 yonder at Carpenter's Hill Rufe Wright 
 that 's the mare was dozin' along when she
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 17 
 
 happen to turn her head an' git a full-len'th 
 view of Uncle Jesse Craik that's the mule 
 an ' she give one snort an' lit out with the 
 whole outfit nor'-nor'east, in a bee-line fer Inji- 
 anny ; an' I had n't no mo'n got 'em back in 
 the road an' straightened out fer Plover ag'in 
 when Uncle Jesse Craik took a notion to see 
 what the nation it was alongside him, anyhow, 
 an' when he see well, he thes duck his head 
 an' shet his eyes an' open his mouf, an' right- 
 wheel, an' nex' minute he had done unlimbered 
 bofe batteries on the enemy's broadside, an' 
 ef I had n't 'a' been mighty lucky lassoin' him 
 with the lines no tellin' where Rufe an' the 
 rest of us would 'a' been by this time. So you 
 keep yo' eye on that team fer me, Sid. Hi 
 Jaynes, he 's gittin' rich so fas' he 's too grastin' 
 to 'fode mo' 'n one hitchin'-pos', an' that air 
 stall-fed m'nop'list o' yourn, he 's got a corner 
 on that." 
 
 "All right, Dunk," laughed Garrard. "I'll 
 see that your span of ' the plain people' don't 
 run away." 
 
 Dunk Peabody slouched into the store, his 
 hands full of apples, and Sid Garrard dawdled 
 down to the wagon and swung up to the driver's 
 seat, where he lounged eating one of Dunk's
 
 1 8 The Opponents 
 
 apples and smiling at the ingenuity with which 
 Dunk had pieced out odd ends of rope and 
 leather into the harness that united the in 
 congruous " Rufe Wright " and " Uncle Jesse 
 Craik." 
 
 The lethargy of approaching noon was on 
 the straggling village. The sun, high overhead, 
 seemed to have drawn every remnant of the 
 morning's fleecy clouds to its own altitude, 
 where, instead of veiling the light, each one 
 appeared as separate softly sifting centres of 
 light, under whose grateful flood the earth 
 basked, lazily outstretched. Far in the blue 
 a pair of great black wings slowly circled. 
 Across the drowsy fields came the drone of a 
 thresher, echoed nearer by the drone of the 
 bees in the clover by the roadside. The pigs 
 had found a bed of mire in the gutter, and were 
 grunting fitfully with sensuous content, while 
 daintily hued butterflies wove lightly over and 
 around them, in the world-old symbolism of 
 the etherial's attendance on the gross. A 
 happy heat-song filled the throat of a young 
 pullet; the stillness was thudded by the hoof- 
 strokes of Blitzen, impatient of the flies, and 
 was pierced by the faint, militant cry of a bee- 
 martin, himself invisible in the sky.
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 19 
 
 Up and across the street Breckinridge 
 Bodine, justice of the peace, notary public, fire 
 and cyclone insurance and rotary churn agent, 
 as well as standing candidate for the office of 
 county court clerk, came to his door in his 
 shirt-sleeves, smoked his pipe, and looked con 
 templatively out on the pigs in their wallow. 
 Garrard saw him, and holding up a handful of 
 the fruit, called to him in Dunk Peabody's sing 
 song, 
 
 " Ap-puls ! ap-puls ! fresh June-ap-puls ! " 
 
 Squire Bodine declined with a shake of his 
 head; then suddenly recognizing the apple- 
 vender, removed his pipe from his mouth. 
 
 " Hey, Sid Garrard ! " he laughed across. 
 "What devilment you up to now?" 
 
 Garrard only repeated his sing-song. 
 
 " Well, fetch me a half bushel of 'em over 
 here and I '11 see if " 
 
 The squire did not finish his joke. He 
 paused, his pipe again out of his mouth, and 
 his gaze directed beyond and behind Garrard. 
 
 " Say, Sid, you know every girl in the 
 county ; who 's that burnin* up the road down 
 yonder? " 
 
 Garrard turned and his eyes kindled as they 
 rested on the slender figure of a horsewoman 
 riding rapidly toward him.
 
 2O The Opponents 
 
 "Never saw her before," he answered the 
 squire ; " but she 's at home on a horse, ain't 
 she? Turn your head, Blitzen ; you 'd like to 
 see her." 
 
 She dashed up and stopped in front of the 
 post-office, and before Sid Garrard, who had 
 sprung from the wagon, could proffer his assist 
 ance, she had dismounted. 
 
 As she stood holding the bridle in one hand 
 and looking around for a place to hitch the 
 horse, her eyes swept from the warning ears of 
 Blitzen to the wagon and then to Garrard. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said. " Won't you hold my horse 
 a moment? " 
 
 The words were in the form of a request, but 
 the tone was more an order; not ungracious 
 or arrogant, but assuming obedience as a mat 
 ter of course. 
 
 Garrard touched his old straw hat and nodded 
 compliance. He stepped forward and laid his 
 hand on the bridle, while she, without looking 
 at him twice, went toward the post-office. 
 
 It was unusual for a girl not to look at Sid 
 Garrard twice, and unprecedented for one to 
 make a request of him in the tone of an order. 
 There was a touch of red in his tanned face 
 and an amused twinkle in his eyes as he
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 21 
 
 watched her walk up the steps and across 
 the platform in front of the building. But 
 there was more than amusement in his eyes. 
 
 " Gad ! " was his verdict, " but she 's a clean- 
 stepping thoroughbred ! " and his gaze did not 
 leave the doorway through which she disap 
 peared into the post-office. 
 
 She came out in a few seconds with a letter, 
 which she opened and read as she paused at 
 the top of the steps. 
 
 She was tall, and there was something about 
 her which suggested that recently she might 
 have been thin, with the thinness of growing 
 youth. Even yet her face would have seemed 
 a little thin but for the slight flush of her ride 
 and the splendidly colorful warmth of the 
 mouth, though the lines of neck, arms, and 
 figure, which a less well-fitting habit could not 
 have concealed, clearly limned no longer the 
 thinness, but the rounding symmetry of youth. 
 
 Refolding her letter and sticking it in her 
 bosom, she descended to the cinder sidewalk. 
 As she came up to him again, Sid Garrard held 
 out his hand to help her to mount, and with a 
 light foot she was quickly in the saddle. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, and took out a little 
 purse and began searching through its contents.
 
 22 The Opponents 
 
 Sid Garrard watched her, the touch of red 
 in his tan deepening and the light in his eyes 
 beaming merrily. 
 
 " She takes me for Dunk Peabody," was his 
 mental verdict, " and Dunk Peabody so let it 
 be." 
 
 She handed him a quarter, and he accepted 
 it, but he swept off the old straw hat with such 
 a bow as Dunk Peabody had never made to 
 man or gods. 
 
 When he stood erect again, she was gather 
 ing up the reins, without any indication that she 
 had even seen his magnificent bow. It was 
 then that Hugh Letcher galloped up. 
 
 " Oh ! this is lucky," he said to the girl. " I 
 got through that business at Jernigan's sooner 
 than I had hoped. I thought maybe I might 
 overtake you." 
 
 " That is good," she answered, with obvious 
 pleasure. " So we may finish our ride, after 
 all." 
 
 " Yes, thanks to my lucky star." 
 
 " Thanks to my letter, which I lingered to 
 read." 
 
 " Blessed be the man who invented letter- 
 writing then. Hello ! Is that you, Sid Garrard, 
 under that hat?"
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 23 
 
 " Morning, Hugh," grinned Sid Garrard. 
 
 " So it is you, is it? Ho ! " laughed Letcher. 
 " Miss Helm arrived only yesterday and you 
 have met her already, have you? You are 
 making even better than your usual good time, 
 are n't you, Sid? " 
 
 " I merely had the pleasure of holding Miss 
 Helm's horse," Sid explained. 
 
 " You don't expect me to believe you ever 
 got near enough to a lady to hold her horse 
 without striking up an acquaintance," chaffed 
 Letcher. 
 
 Sid Garrard made a vain and ludicrous effort 
 to summon a stern expression of warning to his 
 face, while the girl was looking from one man 
 to the other, a picture of blank bewilderment. 
 
 Letcher was laughing heartily. " I do be 
 lieve," he said, " Sid has been trying to behave 
 himself. Miss Helm, is it possible you do not 
 yet know my old friend, Sidney Garrard, whom 
 you have heard me and Florence and mother 
 and the rest of us talking about ever since 
 your arrival in Kentucky?" 
 
 Sid Garrard's hat was off again, but his bow 
 was less exaggerated, while the girl went from 
 red to rose, and from sudden shock to morti 
 fying self-condemnation. She looked hard at
 
 24 The Opponents 
 
 Sid, at first with a little resentment, which 
 quickly melted into contrition and a plea for 
 mercy, then, as she marked the mischievous 
 gleam in Sid's eyes, brightening with a slight 
 smile in her own. 
 
 " Please forgive my stupid mistake, Mr. Gar- 
 rard," she begged. "I really was in a hurry, 
 and did not oh, I don't know why I made 
 it!" 
 
 She held out her hand to him, a little timidly 
 yet with a frank impulse, and Sid took it with 
 a laugh. 
 
 " You could hardly have helped making it 
 under the circumstances, Miss Helm," he re 
 plied. " You see, Hugh, I 'd just come out of 
 the wheat-field and was watching Dunk Pea- 
 body's team for him when Miss Helm rode up 
 and very naturally took me for Dunk." 
 
 " A very likely story, Sid, all except the 
 wheat-field. If I had ever heard of your going 
 into a wheat-field, it would be easier to believe 
 you had come out of one. But ride over to 
 night, old man, and fix up your explanation 
 at supper. And bring your mandolin, or /'// 
 never succeed in making a satisfactory explana 
 tion to Florence." 
 
 " I shall be delighted," answered Sid, as he
 
 Sidney Garrard as a Money-Maker 25 
 
 looked at Miss Helm. Then his eyes fell to 
 the silver coin which he still held, and glancing 
 from it to her and noting the new wave of 
 color come into her face and the half-beseech 
 ing, half-defiant look settle in her eyes, he 
 deliberately placed the quarter in his pocket 
 and with another bow turned to Dunk Peabody, 
 who was emerging from the establishment of 
 Hi Jaynes as Letcher and Miss Helm rode off. 
 
 Sid Garrard stood, with his hands in his 
 pockets, and watched the two figures on horse 
 back until they disappeared over a hill a 
 quarter of a mile away. Then, as Dunk Pea- 
 body, who had been filling a sack with apples 
 and grumbling at Hi Jaynes's " grastingness " 
 in a trade, slung the sack over his shoulder 
 and went back into the store, Sid looked across 
 the street again and saw Squire Breckinridge 
 Bodine still smoking in his doorway, his fat 
 cheeks wrinkled with a broad smile as he met 
 Sid's glance. 
 
 " Ap-puls ! ap-puls ! fresh June-ap-puls ! " 
 sang out the squire; and Sid, grabbing one 
 from the wagon, threw it with close aim at the 
 dodging justice, and jumping on Blitzen, gave 
 him rein homeward.
 
 Ill 
 
 " BENEATH HER FEET " 
 
 KATE COCKERILL, holding her skirts with one 
 hand and with the other fastening at her belt 
 the pinks she had just gathered, had reached 
 the steps of the veranda when Sid Garrard, 
 flushed and in his shirt-sleeves, came hastily 
 through the hall doorway. 
 
 " Oh, here you are, Kit ! " he cried. " I 've 
 been looking all over the house for you. Please 
 do up this crazy tie for me." 
 
 Kate laughed as she went up to him and 
 began deftly adjusting the refractory tie. She 
 had a peculiarly cool and invigorating little 
 laugh, which had once come near causing a 
 tragedy. Hardin Drake, one of her suitors, 
 had said to Ben Fairleigh, another of her suit 
 ors, that he had always sworn there was no 
 sound this side of Paradise that could be com 
 pared to Kate Cockerill's laugh, till one terribly 
 hot night in a hotel room, when his throat was 
 cracked with thirst, and after ringing for water,
 
 " Beneath her Feet " 27 
 
 he heard the musical tinkle of the ice against 
 the pitcher as it came nearer and nearer far 
 down the corridor. To this Ben Fairleigh had 
 replied that Kate Cockerill's laugh was good 
 enough to drink, but it was n't ice in a water- 
 pitcher ; it was more like ice when stirred in a 
 thin glass goblet, with frost on the outside and 
 sugar, fire, and mint on the inside. Hardin 
 Drake had flared up and announced that no 
 gentleman would speak of a lady in the lan 
 guage of a guzzler, and be damned to him ; and 
 Ben Fairleigh had retorted that no mollycoddle 
 could teach him anything in the way of respect 
 for a lady, and be damned to him. Then there 
 had been a " difficulty " which had left both 
 participants badly battered, and which had al 
 ways been regarded in the neighborhood as 
 suspiciously mysterious, as Hardin Drake had 
 curtly explained to an inquirer that the trouble 
 was over a misunderstanding about some short 
 horns that he had bought from Ben, though 
 anybody could tell you that Ben had never 
 owned a short-horn ; while Ben had as curtly 
 explained to the same inquirer that the mistake 
 arose over a game of cards, when it was notori 
 ous that Hardin did n't know one card from 
 another.
 
 28 The Opponents 
 
 Kate Cockerill finished that fateful laugh of 
 hers this evening as Sid held his chin high ; then 
 she stepped back and surveyed him critically. 
 
 "Is it all right now, Kit?" Sid asked. 
 
 " It 's a masterpiece," she pronounced. " But 
 who is it this time, Sid? " 
 
 "Who's what?" 
 
 " Your latest discovery ? Your new flame ? " 
 
 " What makes you think of such wild ques 
 tions, Mistress Impertinence?" he smiled with 
 boyish swagger, seating himself on the railing 
 of the veranda. 
 
 " Because I have never known it to fail that 
 when you come to me to get your cravats tied 
 you are just starting on a fresh ' case.' " 
 
 Sid laughed and blushed a little. " How 
 about your rule this time, if I tell you I am just 
 going over to the Letchers' to supper? " 
 
 Kate sat down in a rocker, and leaning 
 against the back, smiled up at him serenely. 
 
 "Who's visiting Florence Letcher now?" 
 she asked. 
 
 He tossed back his head in laughter, then 
 flipped a sprig of honeysuckle at her before 
 replying : 
 
 " The latest arrival from Olympus, I should 
 say, from the one glimpse of her I Ve had and
 
 " Beneath her Feet " 29 
 
 from the way she treads Kentucky farmers 
 beneath her feet." 
 
 " So bad as that, and at first sight ? And is 
 Olympus in Virginia?" 
 
 " It must be. Hugh called her Miss Helm. 
 Isn't that the name of the Staunton school 
 friend of Florence Letcher's that she is always 
 raving about? " 
 
 " Margaret Helm ? Of course it is. Florence 
 told me the other day she was expecting her. 
 So she has come at last?" 
 
 " At last ! as all things come to him who 
 waits," said Sid with mock solemnity. 
 
 Kate laughed. 
 
 " As all things come and go, you mean," 
 she qualified. 
 
 " Other things may come and other things 
 may go, but this this is final and forever," 
 with sober voice and straightened face. 
 
 " So were all her predecessors," laughed 
 Kate. "What is she like, Sid?" 
 
 "Like? She isn't like! She isn't like 
 anybody, anything ! " 
 
 41 Describe her." 
 
 " It can't be done. She came, brand-new, 
 into the world long after language was invented, 
 and there is none to fit her."
 
 30 The Opponents 
 
 " Is she blonde or brunette?" 
 
 " Blonde or brunette ! Those are mere 
 words, and poor ones at that. I tell you there 
 are no words that fit her." 
 
 "But her hair?" 
 
 " Her hair ! Why did you speak of it? The 
 mere remembrance of it befuddles me. I 
 don't know whether you would call it golden 
 oak, or cherry, or mahogany, or ebony; but 
 there is only one thing to call it if you want to 
 be accurate : call it her hair Margaret Helm's 
 hair." 
 
 "How tall is she?" 
 
 " How tall ! O quality of unstrained mercy ! 
 When she stood for two whole minutes on Hi 
 Jaynes' platform she was so far above a mortal 
 holding a horse on earth that my eyes set in 
 such an uplifted angle I have been seeing only 
 heaven since." 
 
 " And her eyes what color are they ? " 
 
 " Her eyes ? Margaret Helm's eyes ! I was 
 afraid you would ask me that ! O Kitty Cock- 
 erill, you talk too thoughtlessly. Don't you 
 remember, it was once said of a Kentucky 
 orator that he was like a goose paddling on 
 the ocean, unconscious of the depths be 
 neath? The ocean, now, you've seen it,
 
 "Beneath her Feet" 31 
 
 but do you know the color of it? I Ve been 
 watching that piece of sky over yonder where 
 the sun has just set. In the last five minutes 
 it has been gray, with a star or two shining 
 through it ; clear blue, with stars ; clear green, 
 with stars ; indigo, violet, purple, always with 
 the stars; and now it is black-and-gray, with 
 the stars; and after a while it will be black- 
 blue, with the stars. And all the time I 've 
 been watching that sky I Ve been thinking of 
 Margaret Helm's eyes, Kit. Now, people have 
 been trying to describe skies ever since people 
 began to talk, or at least to write, but to this 
 good day can they do it? And skies are com 
 mon, every-day things, and we Ve had them 
 for centuries, while there is only one pair of 
 Margaret Helm eyes in the world, and I 
 should n't say they 'd been here longer than 
 twenty years, at most. Still you sit calmly 
 rocking there, Kate Cockerill, and coolly ask 
 me to tell you the color of Margaret Helm's 
 eyes ! " 
 
 " I believe it is really beginning worse than 
 usual, Sid," she laughed. 
 
 " I won't talk with you any more about her," 
 he said, swinging from the railing to his feet 
 " You '11 be asking me next to tell you what 
 she wore. Is this tie still all right?"
 
 32 The Opponents 
 
 A few minutes later he drove away to the 
 Letchers' behind a spirited trotter, and in a 
 trim buggy that had been well washed not an 
 hour before, a turnout that was familiar on 
 every road in the county and to every pretty 
 girl within twenty miles. For in this country 
 of fast roadsters and pretty girls Sid Garrard, 
 who loved them both, was much given to driv 
 ing with them both, " buggy-riding," as it was 
 commonly called, to the amusement of North 
 ern maids who came as visitors to wonder at 
 the freedom of a custom which permitted a girl 
 to take these long drives with a man, otherwise 
 unaccompanied, and who often remained to 
 acquiesce and even rejoice in that custom. 
 
 There was no buggy in the neighborhood 
 that was held in more favor by the young 
 women than Sid Garrard's ; and its owner, with 
 a fair companion beside him and with a sure 
 hand on the reins, was ever ready to race a 
 rival or drop behind a party, to speed anywhere 
 or jog nowhere, to pull his horse to a walk 
 under long stretches of shade, or to clip down 
 the white, moonlit turnpike with laughter and 
 song. 
 
 As Sid drove up to the Letchers' and threw 
 the reins to a negro who took Sid's seat in the
 
 "Beneath her Feet" 33 
 
 buggy and trotted off to the barn, it was at the 
 hour when the spell that follows a summer sun 
 set was on the earth ; when there was a hush 
 of sound, an arrest of motion, and the going of 
 day and the coming of night were suspended 
 beyond the rim of the horizon, while the serene 
 cavity between the calm of the earth and the 
 calm of the sky was rilled by the light that was 
 neither of the day nor night, and that seemed 
 to come from no central source, but from the 
 tender blue of the dome overhead and from the 
 limpid green of its lower circumference. 
 
 Old Shelby Letcher, grizzled and lean, was 
 seated in one of the chairs that were grouped 
 on the front lawn. He looked up from his 
 newspaper and waved it with a short jerk of 
 welcome to Sid as he approached. A gray- 
 blue wreath of wood-smoke rose from the rear 
 of the plain parallelogram of brick walls, shin 
 gle roof, and wooden veranda of the Letcher 
 homestead. From the same direction came 
 the muffled beat of a rolling-pin, and this, with 
 the querulous plaint of a belated chicken anx 
 iously seeking its roost, was less an infraction 
 than an accentuation of the universal stillness. 
 
 " Well, Sid, how are you ? Have a seat," 
 Shelby Letcher greeted Sid, with a gesture 
 3
 
 34 The Opponents 
 
 that included the entire collection of chairs and 
 benches on the lawn; "have well, I came 
 mighty nigh getting off that joke they used to 
 tell on that Congressman down in Alabama. 
 You remember? He was what the darkeys 
 call one of those ' pompious ' chaps, who show 
 from top-knot to spur the cock-of-the-walk 
 opinion they have of themselves. He stepped 
 into a State office one day and introduced 
 himself. 
 
 '"I am James Madison McCrory,' said he. 
 The official rose to the occasion. ' Pleased to 
 meet you, Mr. McCrory,' he replied. ' Take a 
 chair, sir; take two chairs.' 
 
 " Now you Ve got such a conquering-hero 
 look on you this evening, Sid," the old gentle 
 man concluded, " I was about to ask you to 
 take several chairs." 
 
 Sid was a favorite of Shelby Letcher, who 
 was fond of joking him, and whose jokes were 
 always received in good part by Sid. But the 
 young fellow's color grew a little warmer as he 
 sat down, and there was an unaccustomed self- 
 conscious note in his laugh as he responded : 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Letcher; I will take two 
 chairs for me and my mandolin." 
 
 "Me and my mandolin, hey? Hum! from
 
 " Beneath her Feet " 35 
 
 all I can hear, that is a combination that re 
 quires, off and on, about all the chairs in the 
 county. But what 's going on ? Have you been 
 to Yardley lately?" 
 
 " Not for two or three weeks." 
 
 "Then you don't know the straight of this 
 talk about the Republicans putting out a full 
 county ticket at the next election ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; but from what I Ve heard, that 
 seems to be the programme." 
 
 "By the Lord! what are we coming to? 
 Why, we '11 be having Republicans running for 
 the Legislature and for Circuit Judge next! 
 Now, what would you think of that? " 
 
 " It would n't do them any good to run, 
 would it?" 
 
 " Good ? But would it do us any good ? 
 Think of the impudence of the thing ! It 's 
 all that fellow Kirkland's doing. He 's feeling 
 his oats from the Federal bin too much. He 
 thinks, because he 's got a Government office 
 and a few of his henchmen are riding around 
 as deputy marshals, he can foist a Republican 
 party on this county ! " 
 
 " I don't know much about these things, Mr. 
 Letcher," Sid returned, pulling a spear of grass 
 from its sheath, " but don't you think it might
 
 36 The Opponents 
 
 be an advantage to have two good political 
 parties in the county?" 
 
 "Two good political parties? Maybe so. 
 But what the Tom Walker has that got to do 
 with the Republican party? I agree with you, 
 Sid, you don't know much about these things, 
 you don't know any more about them than 
 I know about that banjo of yours." 
 
 It was in a section of the State where there 
 had been only one political party since the old 
 days of the Whigs and the Democrats, and 
 though Kentucky had been pretty evenly di 
 vided in sympathy between the Northern and 
 Southern factors of the civil war, Luttroll 
 County had been almost wholly pro-Southern, 
 and since the reorganization of the Democratic 
 party in the State, after the restoration of peace, 
 had known no other partisan affiliation. It was 
 not fashionable by many it was not consid 
 ered respectable to be a Republican in Lut 
 troll County, and while there were a few white 
 men who voted the Republican ticket at Na 
 tional elections, the Republicans had neither 
 party organization nor spirit in the county. 
 Shelby Letcher was a Democrat of Democrats, 
 at least in name and action, and it was his 
 pride to be called, as he sometimes was by
 
 " Beneath her Feet " 37 
 
 the Yardley Gazette, the Old Hickory of Lut- 
 troll. Indeed, with his gaunt form, his sharp 
 visage, his keen, deep-set eyes, his small head, 
 and wiry shock of pepper-and-salt-colored hair, 
 he had known the pleasure more than once of 
 being likened in appearance to Andrew Jack 
 son ; and sometimes he swore " by the Eternal." 
 He would have resented now the imputation 
 that he was not a Democrat as vigorously as 
 he would have resented the imputation that he 
 was not a white man. 
 
 Sid Garrard lifted his head quickly as a light 
 step came from the house, and he looked be 
 yond the figure of Florence Letcher walking 
 toward him, but he looked in vain. No one 
 was with Florence, no one was following her ; 
 and that was not as Sid Garrard wished or had 
 expected. 
 
 Sid talked almost as freely and confiden 
 tially to Florence Letcher as he talked to Kate 
 Cockerill, and he liked her, as a chum, as well 
 as he liked Hugh Letcher himself. Florence 
 was a girl to inspire such liking. She took an 
 unaffected interest in Sid and his gallantries. 
 She was jolly, companionable, genuine. She 
 was a true daughter of old Shelby Letcher, 
 without his occasional simulation of austerity.
 
 38 The Opponents 
 
 She had his cheerful temperament, his small 
 head, his unmanageable hair, and, more strik 
 ing than other resemblance, his shrewd, smil 
 ing eyes, eyes which in the father seemed 
 to smile even in his austere moments, as if at 
 his own posing, and which in the daughter 
 seemed to smile because it is as natural and 
 necessary to smile as it is to breathe. 
 
 She sat with the two men on the lawn, soon 
 directing the talk from politics and amusing 
 her father with the story of Sid's adventure of 
 the morning. 
 
 " Mistook Sid for a wagon-driver, did she?" 
 the old gentleman commented. " Well, I don't 
 reckon a pretty girl could stay around here 
 long without learning the difference between 
 a wagon-driver and a buggy-driver, could she, 
 Sid?" 
 
 Hugh Letcher joined them soon, and Mrs. 
 Letcher came out on the veranda for a moment 
 and spoke a word of greeting to Sid ; but his 
 repeated glances toward the house were unre 
 warded. Margaret Helm did not appear, and 
 this, trivial as it was in itself, was not to his 
 liking. He had arrived a little ahead of time 
 in his desire for a second meeting with Mar 
 garet Helm, but he might as well have saved
 
 " Beneath her Feet " 39 
 
 his mare's wind. Could it be possible that 
 Margaret yet felt some constraint or embar 
 rassment from her mistake of the morning? 
 If that was the cause of her delay in showing 
 herself this evening, Sid Garrard could more 
 than forgive it. Indeed, he looked forward 
 with satisfaction to the pleasure of putting her 
 at her ease, for he knew that an acquaintance 
 begun under such conditions is often better 
 begun and farther advanced than by weeks of 
 conventional intercourse.
 
 IV 
 
 "VERY, VERY NICE, OR HORRID" 
 
 IT was not until they went in to supper that he 
 saw Margaret. She was standing at the side 
 board, where she was just completing, as Mrs. 
 Letcher explained, the famous Helm salad. 
 
 So she had remained indoors to make a salad, 
 Sid reflected. That was less to his liking than 
 his first assumption, that she had remained 
 indoors to avoid him. 
 
 Nor was there the slightest indication of con 
 straint or embarrassment as she turned from 
 the sideboard to speak to Sid. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Garrard," she quietly 
 said, smiling pleasantly over the ladle which she 
 held, as if he were any ordinary acquaintance. 
 
 It was altogether different from the meeting 
 that Sid had anticipated. There was no occa 
 sion for him to be genially magnanimous and 
 put her at her ease. Worse than that, there 
 was no opening for anything like that mutually 
 assumed attitude of frivolous familiarity, with
 
 "Very, Very Nice, or Horrid" 41 
 
 its only partially concealed possibilities of seri 
 ous developments, often inspired by some such 
 contretemps as their first meeting. 
 
 " It 's a poor sort of girl that has no coquetry 
 about her," was Sid's verdict as he took his 
 seat at the table, and his dissatisfaction at that 
 particular moment was increased by his knowl 
 edge that instead of finding any evidence of 
 self-consciousness in Margaret Helm, he was 
 himself a little self-conscious. That was a new 
 feeling for Sid Garrard in the presence of any 
 girl. 
 
 But before the supper was over he revised 
 his verdict as to Margaret Helm's lack of 
 coquetry. " It 's natural enough with her when 
 she likes," he concluded. " She carries it very 
 well with Hugh, and she 's a genius when she 
 gives old Shelby Letcher a touch of her 
 mettle." 
 
 To Sid Garrard it was not a satisfactory 
 supper. He was seated between Mrs. Letcher 
 and Florence, while Margaret Helm was on the 
 other side of the table, between Shelby Letcher 
 and Hugh. Sid, therefore, had a good view of 
 her, but he had little more that he would have 
 expected of any girl who knew how to improve 
 agreeably such an opportunity as that offered
 
 42 The Opponents 
 
 by the unconventional meeting of Margaret 
 and himself. Most of the talk at the table was 
 general; certainly nothing that Margaret said 
 to him, even in answer to one or two direct 
 questions of his own, was addressed any the 
 less to the others than to him. He was con 
 sequently quieter than was his wont. 
 
 Once, however, he turned to Florence and 
 asked: 
 
 " Tell me, what do you call that dress Miss 
 Helm has on ? " 
 
 " The name of the material, you mean ? " 
 
 " I suppose so, yes, of course ; what is it 
 made of, you know ? " 
 
 " Organdie," smiled Florence. 
 
 "Organdie? Seems to me I've heard of 
 that sort of dress before, but this is the first 
 time I ever saw one." 
 
 " Oh, no, it is n't," she laughed softly. 
 
 " Yes, it is," he reasserted ; " I noticed it 
 almost as soon as I saw her standing over 
 there by the sideboard, and I noticed it par 
 ticularly when she walked across to take her 
 seat at the table." 
 
 " That was because Margaret is one of those 
 girls who give distinction to their clothes. But 
 you 've been seeing organdie dresses all your
 
 " Very, Very Nice, or Horrid " 43 
 
 life. Kate has several, and I have on one 
 now." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 He turned his head and stared at her, red 
 dening a little and grinning cheerfully. 
 
 " Precisely like Margaret's," she assured him, 
 " except that hers has a green figure and mine 
 a pink." 
 
 " Well, I never did know much about dresses, 
 anyway," he surrendered ; " but even you also 
 sometimes make mistakes about them. Now, 
 hers is n't green, because it 's blue." 
 
 " It is n't blue, because it 's green." 
 
 " But how can it be, when you know green 
 always makes one look ghastly ? " 
 
 " There are different greens. You Ve never 
 noticed that the green of the trees and plants 
 makes any one look ghastly, have you ? " 
 
 " By George ! I never thought of that ! " 
 
 " It must be because it is a living green. 
 And Margaret is a girl who can wear any shade 
 of green because she makes even the deadliest 
 colors living colors." 
 
 "That's a compliment to pay a girl! I'll 
 save it and get it off to her some day as if it 
 were my own." 
 
 The one time when Margaret turned her
 
 44 The Opponents 
 
 eyes and words to Sid Garrard with a personal 
 directness was with what was clearly intended 
 as mild disapprobation. Shelby Letcher had 
 been telling some stories on Uncle Minus, the 
 old negro who tended the vegetable garden 
 and kept the kitchen supplied with wood. 
 
 " Isn't he delightful?" Margaret laughed. 
 
 " Uncle Minus and Margaret are already fast 
 friends," Florence explained. " She spent 
 nearly an hour this evening sitting on the 
 woodpile and listening to Uncle Minus's talk 
 while he was chopping the stove-wood." 
 
 So, Sid reflected, that was where Miss Helm 
 had been while he was waiting for her on the 
 lawn. 
 
 " He was telling me about what he called 
 his sums," Margaret said. 
 
 " Then he was in his element," Shelby 
 Letcher proclaimed. " The old fellow cer 
 tainly has remarkable powers in working out 
 all sorts of difficult problems in mathematics, 
 though he does not know one figure from an 
 other. He can shut his eyes and do in his 
 head sums which I could never do with a ream 
 of paper, and which neither of my children, 
 though I 've given them both a good education, 
 could solve with the aid of their algebra or
 
 " Very, Very Nice, or Horrid " 45 
 
 calculus. How he does it nobody knows ; but 
 he does it, and it is marvellous. He has been 
 written up in the newspapers, and a museum 
 man came out here once to try to get him to 
 give public exhibitions." 
 
 " He 's a long way ahead of the educated 
 pig or the automatic chess-player," said Hugh. 
 
 " I Ve never yet known any one to give him 
 a problem he could n't solve," added Shelby 
 Letcher. 
 
 " He confessed to me to-day that there was 
 one," Margaret declared, " and I think it is 
 shameful," with an open smile of reproach 
 levelled at Sid Garrard, which made him feel 
 a culprit, yet content to be a culprit since his 
 guilt compelled a personal recognition from 
 this indifferent young woman across the table. 
 
 " What could that have possibly been ? " 
 asked Shelby Letcher. 
 
 " I think it a really distressing case," with 
 the same half-serious smile, which was now, 
 however, no longer directed pointedly on Sid. 
 ' He was telling me to-day that nobody had 
 ever given him a sum which he could not work 
 out, until about a year ago, when Mr. Garrard 
 gave him one that had ' stumped ' him ever 
 since."
 
 46 The Opponents 
 
 "Mr. Garrard? Who Sid?" interjected 
 Shelby Letcher. 
 
 " Yes, sir Mr. Sid, Uncle Minus called 
 him. He says it has pestered him a heap; 
 that he lies awake night after night trying to 
 think it out, and that often he is des bleedzed 
 to stop in his tracks a whole spell in de middle 
 of his work and wrastle wid dat sum." 
 
 " The old rapscallion ! " laughed Shelby 
 Letcher. " Well, I can testify to his stopping 
 in the middle of his work. You can see him 
 almost any sunny day out there in the garden 
 standing stock-still, propped up on the handle 
 of his hoe. But he don't seem to be wrastling 
 with anything. He seems to be asleep usually." 
 
 " He says," Margaret continued, " that he 
 has n't had a good night's sleep nor done a 
 good day's work since Mr. Garrard gave him 
 that sum, but that he knows he can find the 
 answer, and is going to do it yet, even if he 
 has to quit taking time to sleep and eat at all." 
 
 " And work," added Hugh. 
 
 "And what was the sum?" asked Shelby 
 Letcher. " Did he tell you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, after insisting that if I knew the 
 answer I was not to enlighten him. The prob 
 lem, in his own words, was this : ' A man, he
 
 "Very, Very Nice, or Horrid" 47 
 
 went up in a b'loon. Atter while de man, he 
 shot off his pistol. Well, suh, de bullit en de 
 soun' uv de pistol, dey bofe hit de groun' at de 
 ve'y same time. How high wuz de b'loon? ' ' 
 
 " Sid," said Shelby Letcher, after the round 
 of laughter with which this was received, 
 " I '11 have to forbid you associating with my 
 negroes if you are going to disable them with 
 such problems as that." 
 
 " Don't you think that Mr. Garrard ought to 
 go to Uncle Minus and confess that it was only 
 a joke?" 
 
 Margaret began the sentence as if addressing 
 it to Shelby Letcher and ended it with her 
 eyes fixed on Sid Garrard. 
 
 Sid, who had laughed heartily at her excel 
 lent imitation of Minus, shook his head. 
 
 " No, no, Miss Helm ! Uncle Minus would 
 never forgive me now, and there 's too good a 
 friendship between us to be sacrificed in that 
 way." 
 
 Afterwards it occurred to him to wonder 
 why Miss Helm herself, taking Minus's troubles 
 so to heart, had not explained to the old fellow 
 the trick that had been played on him, and he 
 finally decided that she had not done so be 
 cause of a delicate consideration for the man
 
 48 The Opponents 
 
 who had played the trick. It was a little thing, 
 but it was more than a little significant of her 
 character, was his verdict. " That girl," he 
 concluded, " is as fine as she looks." 
 
 After supper there were smoking and chat 
 ting on the veranda. Sid and Hugh played a 
 little on the mandolins; two or three young 
 men called ; and a few minutes later Florence 
 slipped through the open parlor window to the 
 piano, beckoning Sid to follow, and soon to 
 the music of piano and mandolin couples were 
 waltzing through the long hall and wide parlor. 
 Margaret was in great demand as a partner, 
 though hardly more than pink-cheeked Mrs. 
 Letcher, who insisted that dancing kept her 
 young. Even old Shelby Letcher, who smoked 
 and looked on from the veranda, finally knocked 
 the ashes from his pipe and scraped gallantly 
 up to Margaret. 
 
 " As Minus says," he bowed, " I have n't 
 4 shook my foot ' for twenty years, but I 'd 
 confess myself an ungalvanizable mummy if I 
 couldn't turn a waltz with such a dancer as 
 this lady." 
 
 Margaret's pleased, girlish laugh and cour 
 tesy, so different from the dignity of her manner 
 to himself, was not lost on Sid Garrard.
 
 "Very, Very Nice, or Horrid" 49 
 
 "There's one thing certain, Florence," he 
 abruptly remarked : " a fellow never is in such 
 high favor among your sex as when he is a 
 very young boy or a very old man." 
 
 Florence turned her head to him with a 
 quick laugh. 
 
 " Then what have you to complain of, Sid ? " 
 
 " That I am at that most uninteresting age 
 to you all, twenty-five." 
 
 " Don't tell your age then, Sid," she confi 
 dentially advised, " and don't tell the girls 
 you think yourself uninteresting to us : they 
 would n't believe you." 
 
 " I don't know that I believed it myself not 
 so long ago." 
 
 " Who is she this time, Sid, and what has 
 she been doing to you?" with affected sym 
 pathy. 
 
 " Oh, let up on that sort of thing, Florence. 
 Do you suppose a fellow never outgrows 
 anything?" 
 
 " Don't be in a hurry to outgrow things, 
 Sid. We could n't do without you, just as 
 you are." 
 
 He played waltz after waltz with Florence, 
 his eyes following the lithe grace of Margaret's 
 form as she danced from parlor to hall and his 
 4
 
 50 The Opponents 
 
 ears intent for every note of her mellow laugh 
 ter as she disappeared beyond the line of his 
 vision in the hall or on the veranda. Finally 
 he sprang from his chair, shoving Hugh into 
 it. " Play awhile," he said, " and let me try a 
 round or two." 
 
 He went straight over to Margaret Helm, 
 tapped the shoulder of the man she was danc 
 ing with, and with hardly an interruption of the 
 waltz, took his place as he stepped aside. 
 
 " I see you have already become reconciled 
 to our custom of ' breaking in,' " he said, 
 " though you did seem rather surprised when 
 Bob Nixon first tried it with you to-night." 
 
 " Did you notice that ? " she smiled. " Though 
 I had heard of the custom, I was surprised, at 
 first, by its novelty and abruptness." 
 
 " I could see it was new to you." 
 
 " Yes ; it was my first experience." 
 
 " I cannot understand why, even if the cus 
 tom was unknown there before, it did not ori 
 ginate instantly and spontaneously wherever 
 you have danced." 
 
 " Evidently," and there was an indulgent 
 curve of the tantalizing lips, " you have other 
 customs here not so exceptional as ' breaking 
 in.' "
 
 "Very, Very Nice, or Horrid" 51 
 
 "Yes; we are given to speaking the truth 
 freely and fearlessly." 
 
 She did not seem to consider it worth a reply, 
 and he guided her through the hall to the 
 veranda. 
 
 " I had begun to think," he said, " that if I 
 was to see anything of you again I should 
 probably have to hang around the post-office 
 and take my chance of another opportunity to 
 hold your horse." 
 
 She looked at him a moment before she 
 replied, and there was a play about her lips 
 which he knew was bewitching, even though he 
 doubted that its meaning was entirely flattering 
 to himself. 
 
 " I should hope not," she said ; " for I am 
 sure you dance quite as well as you hold 
 horses." 
 
 The response was another disappointment to 
 Sid. There was nothing in the tone or in the 
 words to indicate that she realized how com 
 pletely the first formal barriers to a delightful 
 intimacy had been, or should have been, de 
 molished by the manner of their meeting at 
 the post-office. He had even put his hand in 
 his pocket with the purpose of introducing as 
 an exhibit accompanying his next remarks the
 
 52 The Opponents 
 
 coin which she had given him, but as she spoke 
 he withdrew his hand, empty. Clearly such 
 remarks would be, at least for the present, 
 wasted. He restrained them and forced a 
 platitude. 
 
 "You are fond of dancing?" he asked. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, her foot tapping the floor 
 and the rhythm of the waltz seeming to pulse 
 to the very tips of the ribbons at her waist and 
 throat, " is there any one who is not? " 
 
 Mrs. Letcher appeared in the door, laughing 
 and fanning, after a waltz with Nixon. The 
 impetus of the music was still in her motion ; 
 she held out her hands to Margaret; in an 
 instant the two women were in each other's 
 arms and were waltzing the length of the 
 veranda. 
 
 Sid, with a laugh, caught Nixon and swung 
 into the measure. 
 
 " I say, Nix," he asked, " is the New 
 Woman to dispense with man even in the 
 dance?" 
 
 As he drove home, his mare was allowed to 
 pick her own way. The reins were relaxed in 
 one hand, while with the other he twisted 
 abstractedly an unlighted cigar between his 
 teeth. The evening had not been what it should
 
 "Very, Very Nice, or Horrid" 53 
 
 have been. His acquaintance with Margaret 
 Helm had not advanced as he had expected it 
 to do. 
 
 " Did you have a pleasant time last night, 
 Sid?" Kate Cockerill asked at breakfast. 
 
 Sid carefully buttered a roll before he re 
 plied : 
 
 " You know you wanted me to try to describe 
 her yesterday, Kit." 
 
 "Her?" 
 
 " Miss Margaret Helm. You questioned me 
 about her complexion, her height, her hair, 
 her eyes. But you omitted the most impor 
 tant item her mouth. If I could describe 
 her mouth, I might describe Margaret Helm. 
 It is of many shapes, that play one into 
 another. It is rather large. Its color is a 
 warm rose. And, then, it is a mouth which 
 always seems to be saying something, or to 
 have just said something, even when she 
 is not talking. Some of these writers com 
 pare mouths to bows. Well, hers sometimes 
 looks like the prettiest bow just after it has 
 shot at you its keenest arrow. So far as I 
 know, she never really said any such thing, 
 but my most distinct memory of her mouth 
 now is that it had just addressed me in some
 
 54 The Opponents 
 
 such words as these : ' Little boys should be 
 good!'" 
 
 " Oh ! " laughed Kate. " I am going to call 
 on her at once and see for myself. I 'm sure 
 from your account of her that she is either 
 very, very nice, or horrid."
 
 A HOUSE IS PAINTED 
 
 KATE called that day, and Sid accompanied 
 her. 
 
 " Well," he said, as they drove away, " I 
 don't think I need to ask you whether you 
 found her very, very nice, or horrid." 
 
 " No ; I really believe, Sid, she is as nice as 
 you imagined the others at first." 
 
 " There are no others." 
 
 " There never are ! " 
 
 " I 'm glad, Kit, that I 'm not disappointed in 
 you : I should have been disappointed in you 
 if you had not found her nice. I don't care to 
 admit the right of any one but myself to find 
 her horrid." 
 
 " And I 'm glad that you 're glad you 're not 
 disappointed in me. She impresses me as a 
 girl that women and the nicest men will al 
 ways think nice." 
 
 " Nice ! nice ! What a glib little word, and 
 what a lot of things not in the dictionary you
 
 56 The Opponents 
 
 women mean by it! And how easily you 
 prove that I 'm not one of the nicest men ! " 
 
 " I don't see." 
 
 "Don't I reserve the right to think her 
 horrid?" 
 
 " But were n't you glad that I was not disap 
 pointed in her?" 
 
 " I have always struggled under the handi 
 cap of a too clever sister." 
 
 Thus began a summer that had been alto 
 gether unprecedented in the life of Sidney Gar- 
 rard. From his boyhood regarded almost as 
 one of the Letcher family, few were the days 
 after Margaret Helm's coming when he did not 
 take advantage of these terms of intimacy. 
 " Come oftener and stay longer," had immemo- 
 rially been a phrase which Shelby Letcher 
 employed on the departure of visitors whom 
 he liked. It had been addressed to Sid many 
 a time, but not until this summer had he ever 
 been impelled momentarily to differentiate it 
 from others of Mr. Letcher's stock phrases, 
 such as, " We 're needing rain," or " The worst 
 Democrat is better than the best Republican." 
 Now, however, as Sid heard the familiar vale 
 diction, on more than one occasion he glanced 
 into the deep-set eyes of the old gentleman in
 
 A House is Painted 57 
 
 search of a twinkle of new significance, as ready 
 to meet it, if he had found it, with an answer 
 ing twinkle of frank comprehension. 
 
 But, much as he saw of the Letchers, he saw 
 far less of Margaret Helm than he wished to 
 see or, at least, far less in the way he wished 
 to see her. He found little opportunity to mo 
 nopolize her, as he had always inclined to mo 
 nopolize the girl he liked best, or thought he 
 liked best, for the time. When he was in Mar 
 garet's company, others usually shared that 
 privilege. Hugh and Florence were to be 
 taken into consideration. Mrs. Letcher still 
 accounted herself, and was accounted by them, 
 one of " the young people." Even old Shelby 
 Letcher, prone as he had always been to talk 
 politics, seemed more partial than ever to Sid's 
 society since Sid's society now usually included 
 Margaret Helm's society. Besides, the Letch 
 ers' had long been such a popular resort among 
 the young folks of the neighborhood that old 
 Shelby had dubbed his house " Letcher Tav 
 ern," and since Margaret's coming this popu 
 larity had so increased that Shelby canvassed 
 the advisability of expanding Letcher Tavern 
 into Letcher Caravansary. 
 
 Letcher Tavern was now the centre of much
 
 58 The Opponents 
 
 gayety, and Sid Garrard and his mandolin per 
 force contributed their part, notwithstanding 
 his preference for a quieter summer. Here 
 originated many picnics and excursions through 
 the countryside. Here were tennis tourna 
 ments, garden parties, house parties. Always 
 when nothing else was doing there were 
 evening callers, many of whom came to supper 
 and some of whom stayed to breakfast. Sid 
 Garrard accepted the situation, whereas he had 
 formerly been accustomed to make it. He 
 was not contented with it, yet he preferred 
 it to any which he was now able to make. 
 His confidence in his powers and resources 
 suffered. He was no more a monopolist than 
 were any of the other young men who fre 
 quented Letcher Tavern. He had succeeded 
 in securing but one " buggy-ride" with Mar 
 garet Helm alone all that summer. 
 
 But another and different pleasure was some 
 times his, thanks to Kate Cockerill. That was 
 the responsibility, the dignity, the new attitude 
 of consideration imposed upon him as host to 
 Margaret in his own house. Margaret and 
 Kate had soon become friends, and several 
 times Kate had Margaret and Florence with 
 her for a day or two. Once she had Margaret
 
 A House is Painted 59 
 
 alone to spend the night with her, a night 
 when Sid lay long awake as the leaves at his 
 windows whispered exquisite things to him. 
 To see Margaret Helm, bright and happy, in 
 his own home, to sit with her at his own table, 
 to know that she was asleep under his own 
 roof, these were new and subtly tender sen 
 sations which Sid Garrard could not have 
 expressed as well as the whispering leaves 
 expressed them for him. Kate had not been 
 a friend of any of the girls whom Sid had at 
 various periods of his life " monopolized ; " 
 and none of them had ever been her guest for 
 a night. Besides, Sid was convinced now that 
 he had never known a real girl before he met 
 Margaret Helm. 
 
 When Margaret left next morning, after that 
 first night she spent with Kate Cockerill, Sid 
 strolled away through the pasture until, coming 
 to a clump of oaks, he threw himself on the 
 thick grass in the shade, where he lay on his 
 back, his hands beneath his head and his eyes 
 to the sky. High above the white cloud wisps 
 drifted and the sun hung far and contracted, 
 as if with eye half closed against the very 
 brilliance of the day he had created. A haze of 
 heat shimmered over the stretching corn-fields
 
 60 The Opponents 
 
 and the rim of distant woodland. Somewhere 
 vibrated the notes of a yellow-breasted lark, 
 not the ringing challenge which he sounds from 
 the sky, but the quivering trill which he ripples 
 from thorn-bush or mullein spike, the veritable 
 voice of midsummer noontide. Nearer, more 
 pervasive were the drone of bees and the brows 
 ing of cattle, and nearer still Dodona's oracle 
 of the night before murmured, as then, in the 
 whispering leaves. 
 
 Later Sid took a long walk over the farm, 
 and was surprised to note, notwithstanding 
 Wash's management, how much room for im 
 provement there was on every hand. That 
 afternoon Kate Cockerill came upon Sid stand 
 ing on the lawn, his legs spread wide, his hands 
 in his pockets, gazing reflectively at the house. 
 
 " How long has it been since it was painted, 
 do you reckon, Kate?" he asked. 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know. Oh ! yes, I do, 
 too ! It was the same year the Letchers' 
 house was painted, so I 've heard them say." 
 
 " And when was that? " 
 
 "In in oh! what year was it? At any 
 rate, it was what Mr. Letcher calls the year that 
 Samuel J. Tilden was elected President." 
 
 "So? From the looks of the paint are you
 
 A House is Painted 61 
 
 sure it was n't when Andrew Jackson was elected 
 President? But it's a shame, isn't it, I've 
 let the old place run down like this? Why, it 
 simply is n't fit for a girl like like you to 
 live in, Kit!" 
 
 Kate stooped to break off a calycanthus bud, 
 and back of the smile which she gave the pur 
 ple flower was a resolve to have Margaret 
 Helm spend another night with her at the first 
 opportunity. 
 
 And when, two weeks later, Margaret did 
 spend another night with her, carpenters, 
 painters, and paper-hangers had renovated the 
 place, and Sid Garrard played the host with a 
 new dignity and heard a new note in the song 
 of the leaves at his windows. 
 
 Nor did his interest in making a suitable 
 habitation for a girl like Kate stop here. He 
 was surprised to discover how much in need of 
 repairs were the fences, and he daily astonished 
 as well as delighted Wash now by taking some 
 active part in the management of the farm. 
 Indeed, so much of his time was given to this new 
 impetus that even his visits to Letcher Tavern 
 became a little less frequent noticeably so, 
 perhaps, for it was during these weeks that 
 Shelby Letcher, in bidding him good-night,
 
 62 The Opponents 
 
 was once heard to add a qualification to his 
 usually unqualified formula: 
 
 " Come oftener and stay longer and why 
 the Tom Walker have I got to tell you to, 
 Sid?" 
 
 And it was during these weeks that on at 
 least two occasions Kate Cockerill, finding her 
 self alone with Margaret Helm, suddenly and 
 without any apparent reason in particular, threw 
 her arms around her and kissed her with 
 
 " Oh, Margaret, you are such a dear ! " 
 
 It was about this time also that Kate in her 
 chats with Sid began to note in his philosophy 
 a strain, if not of humility, of a certain lack of 
 self-confidence, which was absolutely new in 
 his manifestation of himself, either real or su 
 perficial. It had never been apparent in his 
 devotions to any of the heroines of his " buggy- 
 rides." On the contrary, he had always borne 
 himself in those affairs with a cheerful self-suf 
 ficiency and an unconscious reliance on the 
 adequacy of his own openly asserted interest 
 to command a response in kind that were at 
 once very fine to see and very effective in prov 
 ing their power. 
 
 But it was not thus that he always bore him 
 self this summer.
 
 A House is Painted 63 
 
 " Kit," he abruptly said one afternoon, as 
 he lay in a hammock, while his sister sat near, 
 looking over the newspaper which he had 
 thrown aside, " do you believe in that old 
 notion that a man can't be certain whether a 
 woman will accept or refuse him until he asks 
 her?" 
 
 Kate seemed to finish reading a paragraph 
 before she turned from the paper and replied : 
 
 " Why, yes ; that is, in many cases. Many 
 women themselves never know whether they 
 will accept or refuse a man until he asks 
 them." 
 
 " Oh ! I 'm not speaking of them. Many of 
 them don't know even after a man has asked 
 them. I 'm referring to well, women who 
 have minds of their own and can make them 
 up for themselves." 
 
 " But it is not a question of mind alto 
 gether with the women you are referring 
 to." 
 
 " Well, whatever it is, don't you suppose a 
 man with a head of his own may always know 
 the answer before he asks for it if it 's No ? " 
 
 " But has a man, under those conditions, 
 always a head of his own?" 
 
 " Perhaps I might use some of your own
 
 64 The Opponents 
 
 words and say that his knowledge of the situa 
 tion is not a question of head altogether. 
 Anyway, he knows when it 's No without 
 asking." 
 
 " Then why does he ask? " 
 
 " Sometimes he doesn't. When he does 
 why? Well, why do things with heads insist 
 on butting them against walls ? Why do things 
 with wings fly straight into flames? Why does 
 a fellow who knows there is no hope still hope 
 there is hope? Why has he just got to make 
 her tell him what he knows already? Why 
 has he got to talk to somebody about it, and 
 most of all to her who cares least about it? 
 Now, Mrs. Kitty, if you don't understand don't 
 say that I have n't done my best to enlighten 
 you." 
 
 He got up and started away. Kate, whose 
 tone had been one of levity and whose smile 
 had been that with which she usually bantered 
 him, suddenly sobered and laid a detaining 
 hand on his arm for a moment as he passed 
 her. 
 
 " I think I do understand, Sid," she said 
 gently. " But don't be too sure you do, and 
 don't be too impatient. Girls are not like 
 men."
 
 A House is Painted 65 
 
 " Oh, girls ! " loftily. " Bother girls ! Of 
 course they are not like men. And any par 
 ticular girl she is liable to be not even like 
 girls, is n't she ? " and he walked away whis 
 tling shrilly to a long-eared hound that loped 
 across the lawn to join him.
 
 VI 
 
 AT TUNSTALL PADDOCKS 
 
 ONE afternoon in the middle of August Kate 
 Cockerill and Margaret Helm, Hugh Letcher 
 and Sidney Garrard, returning from a drive 
 along the Old Mill Road, and being overtaken 
 by a sudden storm, stopped at Tunstall Pad 
 docks for shelter. Tunstall Paddocks had once 
 been a stock farm of some celebrity, but for 
 years now its owner, Morgan Tunstall, had not 
 lived on the place, except for a month or two 
 occasionally in the summer ; having long since 
 sold out the strain of thoroughbreds which had 
 made the reputation of the farm, and having 
 left it in the hands of a none too energetic 
 " manager," who was satisfied if it produced 
 average crops of grain and hay, and enough 
 cattle and hogs for his own use. 
 
 Kate Cockerill and her party had hardly 
 taken possession of the broad porch before 
 the storm broke. A servant, in answer to 
 their ring, had informed them that Mr. Barnes,
 
 At Tunstall Paddocks 67 
 
 the manager, was in Plover, while Mrs. Barnes 
 was in bed with a sick headache, but hoped 
 they would make themselves at home; and 
 there were melons and buttermilk in the 
 spring-house, and cider and blackberry cordial 
 in the dining-room. 
 
 Kate ran up to see Mrs. Barnes, and return 
 ing in a few minutes found the others of the 
 party seated on the porch, while the wind and 
 rain were swaying the trees and the water was 
 gushing down and overrunning the gutters. 
 
 " What a splendid old place it is ! " Margaret 
 Helm was saying, as she looked out at the 
 great forest trees and beyond to the meadows, 
 undulating dimly through the rain like billows 
 in a fog. 
 
 " What a splendid old place it has been, and 
 could be made again ! " Hugh qualified. " It's 
 a pity it does n't belong to some one who would 
 take more interest in it." 
 
 " Think what it would be," Sid suggested, 
 " if Morgan Tunstall took the interest in it that 
 he takes in politics." 
 
 "Is Mr. Tunstall a politician?" Margaret 
 asked. 
 
 " Politician ! " exclaimed Hugh. " Abso 
 lutely, irretrievably. He lives on politics. He
 
 68 The Opponents 
 
 has taken to politics as some men take to drink 
 or gambling. They say it is his one passion, 
 and that he cares for nothing else." 
 
 "Is he successful?" Margaret continued. 
 " I don't remember to have heard of him." 
 
 " He lost his first game, I believe," Hugh 
 replied ; " but since that he always wins. At 
 least, so father says, and father is a great au 
 thority on the life and times of Morgan Tun- 
 stall. But Tunstall has not sought office for 
 himself. He does n't seem to care for it. He 
 plays the game of politics because it gives him 
 something to do and affords him a chance for 
 the exercise of power. He plays it for the 
 game, not for the stakes. In short, Miss Mar 
 garet, if you will pardon my illustration, he 
 plays it as a game of chess rather than as a 
 game of poker." 
 
 "Which isn't a good illustration, Hugh," 
 Sid dissented ; " for if Miss Margaret will also 
 pardon me (I know Kate will, as she plays a 
 good hand herself), there isn't a greater game, 
 as a game, than this same poker. The master 
 poker player must not only play cards, but he 
 must play people in a superlative degree, and 
 it 's the same with the game of politics, as you 
 define it, is n't it? At any rate, I believe, with
 
 At Tunstall Paddocks 69 
 
 your father, that Morgan Tunstall is a great 
 man, and that it is a pity he does n't go in for 
 the stakes and take some of the offices." 
 
 " Where does he live, and why does he 
 abandon such a home as this?" were Mar 
 garet's next questions. 
 
 " He lives in Louisville," Hugh answered, 
 " though once in two or three years he spends 
 a few weeks here. As to why he abandoned 
 the place well, there is a story connected 
 with that." 
 
 " Oh, a story ! " Margaret exclaimed expect 
 antly. " Could there be a better time and 
 place for a story?" drawing her chair an inch 
 nearer Hugh's. 
 
 " Unfortunately, there is not enough known 
 about it to make a very effective story. All 
 that is clear is that Tunstall married, in his 
 early twenties, a Louisville girl, and brought 
 her here to live. But she did not like the 
 country, and in less than a year he took her 
 back to Louisville, where he provided a hand 
 some home for her. They were supposed to 
 be happy, but one morning the town was star 
 tled to find that Mrs. Tunstall had eloped with 
 Julius Knowles, a well-bred and popular fellow 
 who had never been suspected of being a
 
 70 The Opponents 
 
 scoundrel. They say Tunstall took it coolly. 
 He got a divorce, and when the couple married 
 and actually had the effrontery to return to 
 Louisville and brazen it out by living there, he 
 never betrayed that he was aware of their exist 
 ence. He has never made his home at Tunstall 
 Paddocks since." 
 
 " It is a pitiful, horrible story," was Marga 
 ret's comment, with a soft gravity of tone and 
 face. 
 
 " It is terrible," echoed Kate. 
 
 " One of the contemptible things about the 
 case I have not mentioned," Hugh went on. 
 " As I said, Tunstall acted coolly and ignored 
 the pair when they returned to Louisville, and 
 this, to some extent, was held against him. It 
 is, or used to be, the unwritten law of this 
 country that the one thing left to be done by 
 a man wronged as Tunstall was wronged was 
 to kill the man who wronged him. Because 
 Tunstall paid no attention to this law, I have 
 heard that he was long suspected by many of 
 cowardice." 
 
 " No one who knows Morgan Tunstall," Sid 
 declared, " would believe there is a drop of 
 cowardly blood in his body. No one here has 
 believed it since he defied that mob and saved
 
 At Tunstall Paddocks 71 
 
 the life of that negro boy whom the badly 
 scared sheriff of this county was about to sur 
 render to the lynchers." 
 
 " But many believed it at first, Sid. That 
 was why, when he took up politics as a pas 
 time, he lost his first game." 
 
 " I don't see how any one who ever saw him 
 could doubt Mr. Tunstall's courage," said Kate. 
 " Come and look at his portrait, Margaret." 
 
 The two girls went into the house, and when 
 they came out a few minutes later Margaret's 
 expression was one of unusual thoughtfulness. 
 
 "Well, what did you make of him?" Hugh 
 asked her. 
 
 She drew her wrap around her shoulders 
 more closely and answered a little absently, 
 as if to some self-inquisition rather than to a 
 question of another : 
 
 " I have never seen a face that impressed me 
 more with its strength and power. I should 
 not like to be either the man or the mob to 
 cross the will of Mr. Tunstall." 
 
 " That 's a good portrait, and you are a good 
 reader of faces, Miss Margaret," Sid testified.
 
 VII 
 
 THE HEAD AND THE WALL 
 
 THE rain soon passed, and the party drove to 
 the Garrards' for dinner. Hugh Letcher and 
 Kate Cockerill were dropped here, but Sid, 
 who was to go on to Letcher Tavern for Flor 
 ence, turned to Margaret Helm on the front 
 seat beside him. 
 
 " It is just the time of day for a delightful 
 drive," he said ; " do you know of any reason 
 why I should have this one all to myself? " 
 
 " None in the world," she smiled, " unless 
 Kate has some other use for me." 
 
 Mrs. Cockerill, thus appealed to, ordered 
 Margaret to keep her seat, and Sid drove off 
 with a triumphant stir in his blood. It was 
 rare that he could find an opportunity to be 
 alone with Margaret, and it was rarer that she 
 so readily acquiesced in it. 
 
 He vigorously shook up the horses, as if to 
 quicken them to the new momentum pulsing 
 into the hands that held the reins, but he soon
 
 The Head and the Wall 73 
 
 pulled up to a lazy jog. The road to Letcher 
 Tavern was all too short, and he wished to 
 make the most of it. 
 
 There were other reasons why one, even if 
 he did not have Margaret Helm beside him, 
 should not hasten over that bit of road. The 
 limestone macadam, washed clean by the rain, 
 was as smooth as asphalt. The foliage of the 
 trees, bushes, and vines that lined it was glis 
 tening wet and sighed fitfully the ecstasy of its 
 rejuvenation, and there were new notes in the 
 throats of birds that might have been caught 
 from this ecstasy of the leaves. The sun was 
 sinking in a marvellously clarified sky of blue 
 and green, without a dash of other color to blur 
 its brilliant purity. There was an answering 
 purity in the cooled air, which was charged, 
 besides, with the insidious and tonic odors of 
 drenched woods and fields. 
 
 At a certain point on that stretch of road a 
 great wild-grape vine sprawls up by the bole 
 of a tall ash and weaves a wide arch across the 
 pike into the branches of the trees on the other 
 side. It was just here, Sid Garrard always 
 remembers when he sees this arch, that Mar 
 garet Helm turned to him with a thrillingly 
 sweet and radiant face which he was never
 
 74 The Opponents 
 
 to forget It appeared to have bloomed, like 
 the scene around them, out of the storm, the 
 freshness of its coloring, the wet scarlet of the 
 lips, the rain-swept sky-light of the eyes, even 
 the hair, coiling at the neck and massed heavily 
 over the brow, seemingly darkened and damp 
 ened by the exhilarating humidity of the atmos 
 phere. It was a face which told him that she 
 had never before liked him as much as now. 
 
 " So you did make the amende to Uncle 
 Minus," she smiled. 
 
 " Uncle Minus? " blankly. " Oh ! about the 
 balloon problem ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " How did you know?" he laughed. 
 
 " He told me only this morning. I noticed 
 that he had been sitting on the garden fence 
 for a long time it must have been at least an 
 hour. His head was propped in his hands and 
 he was so still that I might have believed him 
 asleep if he had not twice got down and care 
 fully made some curious lines on the ground 
 with his toe. Finally I yielded to my curiosity 
 and went out to him and asked him what was 
 the matter. 
 
 " ' Hit 's de same de matter whut 's been de 
 matter ever sence Mr. Sid tole me 'bout dat
 
 The Head and the Wall 75 
 
 b'loon, Miss Marg'rit,' he said. ' I des tryin' 
 to work out how high dat b'loon wuz when dat 
 pistol went off da' 's all.' 
 
 " I asked him if he was sure Mr. Sid himself 
 could work out that, and he said : 
 
 " ' I dunno 'bout dat. Maybe he kin en 
 maybe he cain't. Mr. Sid, he come roun' yere 
 t' other day en he 'lowed he wuz des foolin' 
 when he give me dat sum, en he tole me 't wa' n't 
 no use fer me to pester no furder 'bout it, caze 
 he des made it up hisse'f to ketch me, en it 
 cain't be worked out nohow. But I up en tole 
 him to go 'long. Dah wuz de sum, en it boun' 
 to have er answer. Dah wuz de b'loon, dah 
 wuz de pistol fired off, dah wuz de bullit en de 
 soun' hittin' de groun' at de same time how 
 high wuz de b'loon ? Nobody cain't deny de 
 b'loon wuz so high when de pistol went off: 
 how high wuz she? Maybe Mr. Sid done fool 
 hisse'f, but dey cain't nobody fool me 'bout 
 sums. Ev'y sum, hit des bleedzed to have er 
 answer, en dat b'loon, hit sholy is a sum, en I 
 gwine work it out, don't keer whut Mr. Sid say, 
 ef de good Lawd spar' me bref en strenk.' 
 
 " I 'm afraid it is impossible to break him of 
 the habit of trying to find out how high the 
 balloon was," Margaret concluded.
 
 76 The Opponents 
 
 " Yes," Sid agreed, laughing, for the second 
 time, at her faithful imitation of Minus, " he 
 thinks I builded bigger than I knew when I 
 ' made up ' that problem, and I only won his 
 contempt when I tried to convince him it could 
 not be solved." 
 
 They had now come out on the stretch of 
 road that lay for a mile along the bank of the 
 little river. To the left the level rays of the low 
 sun lit rolling leagues of grassland, dotted by 
 an occasional spreading tree, or cluster of trees, 
 and marked by long lines of intersecting fences. 
 Nearer and to the right the thick fringe of 
 shrubbery that edged the river and hung over 
 the water threw upon the stilled stream the 
 first cool, brooding shadows of evening. Far 
 ther ahead the surface of the river widened in 
 a sun-smitten sheet of silver, extending, it 
 seemed, to the very windows of Letcher Tavern, 
 which shone as if with the same brilliance. 
 Sid Garrard had pulled the horses to a slow 
 walk. 
 
 " But it would n't be safe," he said, turning 
 his head and looking at her with sudden seri 
 ousness, " to credit me with any belated con 
 sideration for Uncle Minus in confessing the 
 trick I had played him. I tried to undo that
 
 The Head and the Wall 77 
 
 trick simply because you disapproved of it. 
 Do you remember, when you told the story, 
 the evening of the day I first met you ? " 
 
 She colored a little. 
 
 " Yes that is, I remember I told the story." 
 
 " And I remember you did n't like my part 
 in it. That was the most distinct impression it 
 made on me, because, I suppose, from the very 
 first I have wished to please you, not displease 
 you. Perhaps because I so much wished to 
 please you was one reason why I have done little 
 but displease you." 
 
 She was rosy now, and as serious as he. 
 
 " No ! no ! " she protested with agitation. 
 " That is not true ! How could it be? I I 
 have not taken it on myself to be either pleased 
 or displeased with what does not concern me." 
 
 " But everything I have done since I met you 
 has concerned you that is, in the sense that 
 you have been the motive of everything I have 
 done. You know you must know that 
 from the day I first saw you I have thought 
 only of you only of how to " 
 
 " Don't, please ! You must not ! " making a 
 quick gesture that was at once imploring and 
 imperative. " I do not wish to hear." 
 
 " Yes, I know. I am only displeasing you
 
 78 The Opponents 
 
 again. But you are going away soon, and I 
 must have it out, though I am perfectly aware 
 there is no chance for me yet." 
 
 "Why would you spoil everything?" she 
 said sadly, a little petulantly. " I did so wish 
 us to continue to be good friends ! " 
 
 " Good friends ! We have never been good 
 friends. It was impossible, when I loved you 
 so openly and madly from the first, and it will 
 always be impossible because I can never for 
 get my love for you long enough to compro 
 mise on friendship. I want your love, Margaret, 
 nothing less. I know I cannot have it now, 
 but " 
 
 " Oh, love ! love ! " she interrupted passion 
 ately, her cheeks glowing, her eyes flashing. 
 " I do not wish to hear the word. I will have 
 nothing to do with it ! I am so young yet, and 
 there are so many other things that come be 
 fore love. There is no man living that I would 
 allow myself to love now ! " Her lips were 
 half parted as she finished speaking ; she threw 
 out both hands in a swift, outspreading motion, 
 as her eyes looked out exultantly on the beau 
 tiful world before her and her nostrils drew in 
 its exhilarating atmosphere. 
 
 " Ordinarily," Sid droned, " I 'd say it would
 
 The Head and the Wall 79 
 
 be a poor sort of love if a girl could control it 
 at will ; but you, Margaret well, you are not 
 to be classed ordinarily, and I 'm not sure that 
 anything is impossible with you now. Any 
 way, I shall wait with the rest until you have 
 had the other things, and when the time comes 
 I shall take my chance with the rest if I can't 
 get my way before." 
 
 She paid no attention to this. Her breath 
 ing was still full, her head still high, her eyes 
 still victoriously penetrating the beautiful world 
 beyond the track of the silvered river. 
 
 " When the time comes ! " was Sid's thought 
 as he shook up the horses. " The glory of that 
 time to the man who comes with it ! But one 
 thing is certain he will be a man, not a 
 boy."
 
 VIII 
 
 "A YOUNG FOOL" 
 
 ONE passing along that road on an afternoon 
 about a week later might have inferred that 
 some festivity was in progress at Letcher Tav 
 ern. At one point of the shaded lawn there 
 was a group of a dozen garrulous and laughing 
 young people, and scattered in various direc 
 tions under the trees were several couples, less 
 audible. Old Shelby Letcher, with his chair 
 tilted against an oak, was delivering a mono 
 logue, emphasized by gestures with the pipe 
 which he had taken temporarily from his 
 mouth, and addressing his remarks especially 
 to Sid Garrard, who maintained a listening 
 attitude, but whose eyes sought the larger 
 and noisier group in the babble of which the 
 voice of Margaret Helm, though unusually soft 
 and low, was easily distinguishable. Here and 
 there were two or three negroes serving light 
 refreshments. 
 
 But it was not a prearranged affair of any 
 kind. It was the last day of Margaret Helm's
 
 "A Young Fool" 81 
 
 visit to Kentucky, and Margaret's friends, with 
 the Letchers' friends, had simply come over, 
 and out, and in, to say good-bye. 
 
 Sid Garrard, since he had " had it out " with 
 Margaret a week before, had not again verged 
 on sentimental or even personal ground. He 
 knew that he could only lose by trying to force 
 the issue further at present, and there was 
 nothing for him to do but, as he would have 
 expressed it, " give her her head." He had 
 set himself to continue, as before, their usual 
 friendly relations, and he had been consum 
 mately seconded by Margaret. Perhaps Kate 
 Cockerill may have suspected the real situation, 
 but beyond her surely there could have been 
 no other unless it was Florence Letcher. 
 To venture an opinion on that point would 
 hardly be profitable ; for it is not given to a 
 masculine mind to fathom the knowledge, 
 intuitions, or suspicions existing between two 
 girl intimates. Nevertheless Sid inwardly chafed 
 that he had to spend so much of this last after 
 noon of Margaret's stay listening to Shelby 
 Letcher's well-worn political dogmas, and that 
 even could he escape these he could only be 
 one of the score that were now making merry 
 at Letcher Tavern. 
 
 6
 
 82 The Opponents 
 
 The political dogmas were interrupted by 
 the arrival of two men who drove up, and, 
 leaving their buggy at the gate, walked 
 with a business-like directness toward Shelby 
 Letcher. One of these was John W. Driggs, 
 familiarly and admiringly called "Jawn W." 
 He was a well-made, ill-dressed fellow of fifty, 
 with a shrewd, firm face, shaved except at the 
 cleft between chin and lower lip, from which 
 grew a pointed tuft of gray hair, above which 
 his upper lip closed down in a clean, almost 
 straight line, ending at the corners in two 
 little dimples that gave an inconsistently cher 
 ubic and youthful touch to his countenance. 
 " Jawn W." was the head of the Democratic 
 County Committee and had long been the 
 local party leader and boss. His companion 
 was Squire Breckinridge Bodine, who, not 
 being able to pass the ladies on the lawn 
 without a great deal of bowing and beaming, 
 and without stopping to bend low over Flor 
 ence's hand, was a quarter of a minute behind 
 Driggs in joining Shelby Letcher. 
 
 "Ain't that Jawn W. and Breck Bodine?" 
 asked Mr. Letcher, swinging his pipe toward 
 the two and cutting off a sentence invocative 
 of the Resolutions of '98. " I wonder," raising
 
 "A Young Fool" 83 
 
 his voice that Driggs might not miss the words, 
 " what skulduggery Jawn W. is up to now. 
 I say, Sid, would you mind stepping around 
 the house and unchaining old Rosin?" 
 
 Shelby Letcher was one of Driggs' greatest 
 admirers, and it was his way of showing his 
 admiration to profess to Driggs himself much 
 contempt and respect for Driggs' powers of 
 rascality. 
 
 Driggs came up, both dimples going, and 
 was received with a vigorous hand by Mr. 
 Letcher. As Squire Bodine followed, Mr. 
 Letcher called to a negro who was passing with 
 a tray. 
 
 " Bring that over here, Sam. What is it? " 
 
 " Lemonade, sir," the boy answered, as he 
 approached. 
 
 " Lem lemonade ! Listen to that, gentle 
 men. Lemonade for Jawn W. and Breck 
 Bodine ! Sam, will you never learn any 
 manners? Water the peonies with it and " 
 
 He went over to Sam and gave him a few 
 directions in a lowered voice; then turning to 
 Driggs and Bodine again, as Sam hastened 
 toward the house, said : 
 
 "Gentlemen, I hope you will excuse Sam. 
 He 's one of these new niggers, and what 's
 
 84 The Opponents 
 
 worse, was born over in Indiana, or Illinois 
 somewhere, and you all know very well you 
 can't expect a darkey raised across the Ohio 
 River to have any real nigger breeding." 
 
 " Hah ! don't give yourself any uneasiness, 
 Mr. Letcher," Squire Bodine protested, fan 
 ning his hot face with his hat. " Everybody 
 knows that no Letcher Tavern darkey ever 
 makes a miscue among gentlemen ; though I 
 can't see that it was any particular fault of 
 Sam's this time, as he was makin' for the 
 ladies when you called him, and I have under 
 stood that ladies have a taste for lemonade." 
 
 " Well, Squire, whosever fault it was, I 
 promise you it shall soon be remedied." 
 
 " In the mean time, Mr. Letcher," Driggs 
 suggested, "is Hugh at home? We'd like 
 particularly to have a few words with him this 
 evenin', on the matter I mentioned to you in 
 Yardley the other day." 
 
 " Why, yes, he 's here somewheres or other. 
 O Hugh ! Sid, look around and find that 
 young man, won't you? " 
 
 Sid found Hugh among those who had 
 gathered about Margaret Helm, and send 
 ing him to his father, took the desirable seat 
 near Margaret which Hugh vacated. There
 
 "A Young Fool" 85 
 
 was no opportunity, however, for such engross 
 ment in Margaret's society that Sid did not 
 see Driggs, Bodine, and Hugh walk off to a far 
 corner of the grounds, where they sat down 
 and engaged in a conversation that seemed 
 principally conducted by Driggs. When Sam 
 reappeared with a differently colored set of 
 glasses on his tray, he was directed by Shelby 
 Letcher to the far corner, and when he left the 
 far corner he evidently took a request to Mr. 
 Letcher which the old gentleman complied with 
 by getting up and going over to the far corner 
 himself. There was much more talk, Shelby 
 Letcher now apparently leading ; finally Driggs 
 rose and shook Hugh's hand, after which he 
 also shook Mr. Letcher's, a performance that 
 was repeated immediately, though more ef 
 fusively, by Squire Bodine. Sam was now 
 again summoned, with another set of glasses ; 
 Shelby Letcher, holding a glass in one hand 
 and his pipe in the other, made a short speech, 
 after which a toast was drunk, clearly to Hugh 
 Letcher, and the party, all smiling now, moved 
 slowly across the lawn toward the gate. 
 
 As they were passing within a few yards of 
 the group in which Sid Garrard was sitting, 
 Squire Bodine, with an eye ever to the ladies,
 
 86 The Opponents 
 
 lifted his hat from his head and, his broad face 
 radiant with the situation in which he found 
 himself, bowed impressively and proclaimed : 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, I have the high 
 honor to be the first to announce er, ladies 
 and gentlemen, I am most happy in being the 
 first to enjoy the privilege and distinction of 
 presenting to you our next Senator in the 
 State Legislature, the Hon. Hugh Letcher." 
 
 This was received with exclamations of sur 
 prise and congratulation and with a round of 
 hand-clapping which Squire Bodine at once 
 took to himself as a tribute to his oratorical 
 powers, responsive to which, bubbling over 
 with satisfaction and reassurances of the truth 
 of his announcement, he was the next instant 
 in the thick of the crowd, grasping hands right 
 and left, especially hands of the ladies. 
 
 Hugh, besieged for explanation, laughed, 
 with a gesture toward Driggs, who, ill at ease 
 in such company, was silently standing at some 
 distance, by the side of Shelby Letcher. 
 
 Driggs was dumb, and Shelby Letcher 
 undertook to amplify Squire Bodine's an 
 nouncement. 
 
 " This is all there is to it, my friends," he 
 said, extending his pipe out over his auditors.
 
 " A Young Fool " 87 
 
 " Our worthy fellow citizen, Squire Bodine, is, 
 I am afraid, a little precipitate. Hugh is not 
 elected yet he is not even nominated, but 
 the er the executive heads of the party, 
 through their chief and representative, Jawn 
 W. Driggs, Chairman of the Luttroll County 
 Democratic Committee, have expressed a de 
 sire that my son consent to become a candi 
 date before the convention for the nomination, 
 with kindly personal assurances from Mr. 
 Driggs that the young man will enlist such 
 influential interests in his support that his 
 chances for nomination by the convention are 
 er very promising, very promising in 
 deed." 
 
 " Very promising?" swelled Squire Bodine, 
 straightening up from a bow he had been mak 
 ing over Margaret Helm and, in his resentment 
 of the attempted qualification of his own words, 
 forgetting to release her hand. ' Lookahere, 
 Mr. Letcher, you know as well as anybody 
 that Hugh is done as good as elected that 
 Jawn W. Driggs is for him, first, last, and all 
 the time, and that when Jawn W. Driggs says, 
 ' Stick ! ' the convention says, * Stuck ! ' and 
 that a nomination means an election, hands 
 down. Ladies and gentlemen, that's all there
 
 88 The Opponents 
 
 is to it, and the Hon. Shelby Letcher knows it, 
 the Hon. Hugh Letcher knows it, and the Hon. 
 Jawn W. Driggs knows it better 'n anybody." 
 
 Again expressions of gratification and con 
 gratulation were addressed to the future State 
 Senator, and Sid was standing near Margaret 
 when, as Hugh approached, she impulsively 
 stretched out her hand to him. 
 
 " I am so glad ! " she exclaimed radiantly. 
 " I know you will make a splendid record, and 
 we shall all be proud of you." 
 
 "7'd go to the penitentiary, if necessary, 
 Hugh, instead of to the Legislature," Sid 
 laughed, " to have such things as that said to 
 me. And by the way," with a sudden serious 
 ness, " why can't I go to the Legislature with 
 you ? I 've been with you in most of your 
 record-making heretofore. I say, Mr. Driggs," 
 the laughter again in his voice, as he turned 
 abruptly to the county chairman, " Hugh and 
 I are usually partners in iniquity. Can't you 
 send me with him to Frankfort ? " 
 
 "To the Legislature?" asked Driggs, some 
 what at a loss how to take this sally of Sid's. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; to the Legislature." 
 
 Nearly every one was laughing now. The 
 joke seemed a good one. " Listen to Sid ! "
 
 "A Young Fool" 89 
 
 cried out Nixon. " He 's actually putting him 
 self in the hands of his friends for the Legis 
 lature ! He '11 be coming out for Governor 
 soon ! " 
 
 "I'd like to suppote you, Sid," responded 
 Driggs, " but I 'm afraid you 're a little too 
 late." 
 
 " Hugh goes to the Senate," Sid persisted, 
 " but you Ve still got the place in the House, 
 have n't you ? " 
 
 " Well, you know, Lanagin has been prom 
 ised well, you know, he 's been a candidate 
 for the place for several weeks, and I expect 
 he 's got it nailed down pretty tight by this 
 time. In fact, Mr. Garrard, I keep toler'bly 
 well posted on the politics of the county, and 
 I 'm dead sho that Lanagin already has a ma 
 jority of the delegates to the convention." 
 
 " Why, the delegates have not been selected 
 yet." 
 
 "That don't make no difference, Mr. Gar 
 rard. The the people are done committed 
 to Lanagin, and the delegates are bound to be 
 selected accordin'ly." 
 
 " Oh, come off, Sid ! " Squire Bodine put in, 
 " you know as well as anybody that Jawn W. 
 Driggs is promised for Lanagin, and that when
 
 90 The Opponents 
 
 Jawn W. Driggs says, ' Stick ! ' the convention 
 says, ' Stuck ! ' " 
 
 " Officially," qualified Driggs, " I 'm not for 
 nobody, but personally I was long ago com 
 mitted to Lanagin. If you had spoke to me 
 earlier, it might have been different." 
 
 The joke still seemed to be considered a 
 good one. " I do believe Sid 's in earnest ! " 
 roared Nixon. Sid glanced around at the 
 merry faces. They were laughing at the very 
 thought of his broaching the idea of becoming 
 a candidate for the Legislature. But Margaret 
 Helm was not laughing. She was looking from 
 him to Driggs with wonder and perplexity. 
 Kate Cockerill was not laughing. Her face 
 was flushed in resentment of the laughter, and 
 her eyes were fixed on Sid with a touch of 
 solicitude in their tender depths. Sid flushed 
 a little himself, and his jaws hardened. He 
 turned again to Driggs. 
 
 " So you think there would be no chance for 
 me in your convention, Mr. Driggs? " 
 
 " Well, you know everybody has a right to 
 go before the convention that wants to, Mr. 
 Garrard ; but what would be the use ? I 'm 
 givin' it to you as a friend that it is my honest 
 personal opinion that no man in the county 
 would have a chance now against Lanagin."
 
 "A Young Fool" 91 
 
 " All right," Sid announced with quiet reso 
 lution ; " then I '11 see what I can do against 
 Lanagin before the people instead of before 
 the convention." 
 
 " By George, he is in earnest ! " gurgled 
 Nixon. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you '11 run inde 
 pendent?" replied Driggs in amazement. 
 
 " I suppose that 's what you call it," Sid 
 answered, moving away. 
 
 " It 's it 's everlastin' suicide, Sid ! " gasped 
 Squire Bodine. 
 
 " Sid, you 're a young fool ! " pronounced 
 Shelby Letcher, with unaffected asperity. 
 
 Sid was smiling again now. " Well," he 
 replied, " this is my first appearance in politics 
 you know " 
 
 " And it '11 be yo' last, my boy," interjected 
 Squire Bodine. 
 
 " And I 'm doing the best I know how," Sid 
 continued ; " and as my first speech, ladies and 
 gentlemen, I ask everybody to vote for me who 
 is not committed to somebody else." 
 
 " There 's one thing sure, Sid," Nixon bel 
 lowed, " you 'd win, in spite of all the Lanagins 
 and the Driggses, if the girls of the county 
 could vote."
 
 IX 
 
 THE ISSUE JOINED 
 
 WHEN about four years later Sidney Garrard 
 announced his candidacy for Congress, there 
 were few voters in Luttroll County who did 
 not recall and recount, with some personal 
 reminiscence, his first race for the Legislature 
 and the altogether surprising manner in which 
 he " slipped up " on John W. Driggs and his 
 man Lanagin. Not many of the Luttroll voters 
 had taken that race any more seriously than 
 Nixon had done at the moment when Sid had 
 so suddenly declared his intention to become 
 a candidate. It had been looked upon as a 
 " joke " by the county generally, as it had been 
 looked upon by most of those who heard his 
 declaration on that afternoon at Letcher Tavern. 
 People laughed good-humoredly in his face 
 wherever he went in his canvass of the district, 
 but many of those who laughed voted for him 
 on election day, because of some special rea 
 son : because he was the friend of the voter ;
 
 The Issue Joined 93 
 
 because he was " a clever chap " and " a good 
 fellow ; " because their votes could not affect 
 the result, anyway; because, even in a joke, 
 they liked the spunk of a man who would 
 " buck " against John W. Driggs and his 
 machine. Sid Garrard was simply rated as 
 Sid Garrard, happy-go-lucky, " one of the 
 boys " even younger than his years, hail fellow 
 with horses and dogs, but fonder of pretty girls 
 than he was even of horses and dogs, " popu 
 lar " among all classes of men, with whom he 
 was ever ready to give and take a story or a 
 prank. His candidacy for the Legislature was 
 considered only as one of his pranks. It was 
 not taken seriously because Sid himself had 
 not been known to take anything seriously. 
 
 But notwithstanding that Sid knew nearly 
 every voter in the county and made personal 
 overtures for his support, and notwithstanding 
 that he received so many votes for the reasons 
 already indicated, he could not have been 
 elected if Driggs and the machine, like the rest 
 of the county, had not also laughed in his face 
 and regarded his candidacy a joke. Lanagin, 
 once nominated, was, as a matter of course, 
 " as good as elected." Certainly John W. 
 Driggs did not think it necessary to make any
 
 94 The Opponents 
 
 particular effort to defeat such an opponent as 
 Sid Garrard. 
 
 When the count of the ballots showed that 
 Sid had been actually elected by a scant major 
 ity, it was considered a bigger joke than ever. 
 People laughed in his face more heartily than 
 before. But Driggs did not laugh. No one in 
 Luttroll County believed that Driggs ever 
 afterward thought it a laughing matter, or ever 
 entirely recovered from the blow which his 
 pride and prestige suffered in Lanagin's inex 
 cusable defeat. 
 
 Before Sid had served out his first term, 
 however, people quit laughing at him, either 
 in his face or behind his back. He put the 
 same energy and enthusiasm into his work at 
 Frankfort that he had put into his play at 
 home. He made such a record as a progres 
 sive, fearless, and clean member of the House 
 that he had little opposition for re-election, 
 which he secured after easily beating Lanagin 
 for the nomination in convention, thus return 
 ing to the Legislature with unimpeachable cre 
 dentials of " regularity," indispensable in win 
 ning his hard fight for the Speakership. 
 
 The value of his service as Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives was disputed. The
 
 The Issue Joined 95 
 
 " thick-and-thin " element of his party, " the 
 fossils," the " old guard," " the machine," the 
 " Bourbons," the men who believed, like Shelby 
 Letcher, that the worst Democrat was better 
 than the best Republican, and yet who could 
 not have given a more intelligent reason why 
 they were Democrats than that " the Demo 
 crats are our people " these and their repre 
 sentatives in the House were not pleased with 
 Sidney Garrard's record as Speaker. On the 
 contrary, there were times when they were 
 astounded and outraged by his failure to do 
 what any " good party man " would have done 
 as a matter of course. He was too unreliable, 
 too prone to " fly the coop " when his party 
 needed to count most on his blind loyalty. He 
 could not be depended on to rule in the inter 
 est of his party, even on essentially partisan 
 measures, when such a ruling was all that was 
 . requisite to put these measures through. Even 
 when in the last days of the session the cele 
 brated Redistricting Bill, well known to have 
 been prepared under the supervision of Morgan 
 Tunstall himself, the shrewdest party leader in 
 the State, was rushed through the Senate and 
 could as easily have been rushed through the 
 House but for Garrard's obstinacy in refusing
 
 96 The Opponents 
 
 to make a new ruling against the rights of the 
 minority, he persisted in his obstinacy, not 
 withstanding the fierce denunciations of his 
 "treachery" which his course provoked, and 
 was thus responsible for the failure of the bill 
 which was conceded to embody the ablest 
 scheme of gerrymandering the State yet de 
 vised, and which, everybody knew, would un 
 questionably have prevented the possibility of 
 an opposition majority in the Legislature. 
 
 On the other hand, his course in the Speaker's 
 chair won him many friends among those Ken- 
 tuckians whose party affiliation was influenced 
 by something more than association and pre 
 judice, bigotry or lack of real conviction, upon 
 whom the ties of mere party regularity were 
 becoming loose, and who were beginning to 
 cast their votes, despite the contempt of the 
 " party liners," as the involved issue, rather 
 than the party name and the party hacks, 
 dictated. These Kentuckians were even then 
 making themselves felt, however slightly, and 
 since then they have so increased and have so 
 asserted themselves that Kentucky cannot 
 always be counted on with certainty by either 
 of the old political parties with their appeals to 
 petty passions and inherited ignorance, and
 
 The Issue Joined 97 
 
 with their inspiring aims to put the " ins " out 
 and the " outs " into offices whose salaries, 
 small though they may be, are much greater 
 than most of the incumbents earn or expect to 
 earn elsewhere. 
 
 Sidney Garrard's refusal to consider the 
 Speakership as first of all a party appendage 
 and instrument had brought upon him such 
 criticism and aspersion from those of the " reg 
 ulars " who have no claims upon any party ex 
 cept regularity that his term in the Legislature 
 no sooner expired than, with his spirit of resent 
 ment and belligerency aroused, he defiantly 
 announced his purpose to seek an election to 
 Congress. 
 
 Within twenty-four hours after the publica 
 tion of this announcement Sidney Garrard, 
 riding by Tunstall Paddocks, was hailed by 
 Morgan Tunstall and urged to stop and smoke 
 a cigar with him. 
 
 " I wish particularly to have a talk with you, 
 Sid, and I was going to hunt you up to-day for 
 that purpose." 
 
 Tunstall had spent more and more of his 
 
 time in recent years at his country place, which, 
 
 indeed, he now made his home, and though it 
 
 was April, earlier by two months than he usu- 
 
 7
 
 98 The Opponents 
 
 ally appeared there, Garrard was not surprised 
 to see him. Garrard had been long enough " in 
 politics " to be proof against surprise at any of 
 Tunstall's appearances or disappearances. 
 
 The two sat on the porch just where, Gar 
 rard remembered, Margaret Helm had sat four 
 years before as she listened to Hugh Letcher's 
 story of Tunstall. Garrard was thinking more 
 of how Margaret Helm looked as she sat there 
 than he was speculating about Tunstall's object 
 in seeking this interview. 
 
 Tunstall was not long in coming to the point. 
 
 " Sid," he said, in his straightforward way, 
 " I have brought you here to ask you to re 
 consider your intention to run for Congress." 
 
 Garrard turned his eyes upon Tunstall with 
 an expression of curiosity. 
 
 " The fact is, Sid, I am going to run myself, 
 and both of us can't be elected." 
 
 Garrard's short laugh was boyish and frank. 
 
 " I Ve never counted on not having strong 
 opposition, Mr. Tunstall," he replied. 
 
 " I expect to win, Sid. I 've never gone in 
 for office before, and I can't afford to lose 
 now." 
 
 " So far as you are personally concerned, Mr. 
 Tunstall, I should hate to see you lose, but it
 
 The Issue Joined 99 
 
 seems to me that personal considerations enter 
 very little into the matter." 
 
 " There 's where you are mistaken. You have 
 been provoked into making this race because 
 you want a personal vindication of your course 
 as Speaker. I don't mean to say that you have 
 not the highest conception of a Congressman's 
 duty and the highest purpose to do that duty. 
 As for me, I confess candidly that I am influ 
 enced by personal considerations entirely in 
 this instance. I have mapped out a plan for 
 the employment of my personal energies for 
 eight or ten years, and a term in the next Con 
 gress is the first step in that plan." 
 
 " If you insist on emphasizing the personal 
 side of my case," Garrard said reflectively, " it 
 seems to me you make it imperative that I 
 fight it out to the end and all the more im 
 perative if you are to be my opponent." 
 
 " I see. I thought you would say something 
 like that. It is in keeping with the fine and 
 quixotic ideas with which you have entered 
 politics. It sounds manly. It is manly. You 
 can make a stirring and eloquent campaign 
 with it. But you have no chance to win with 
 it, Sid; and if you lose under such circum 
 stances it will be almost impossible for you to
 
 ioo The Opponents 
 
 make another start. And you are too young 
 to end your political career before it is fairly 
 begun." 
 
 "I may have no chance to win, as you say, 
 Mr. Tunstall ; but certainly I can have no 
 chance if I do not take one, however hopeless 
 it may seem. What you say about practical 
 expediency may be true, and I may end my 
 political career by continuing in this race, but, 
 really, I have no desire for a political career on 
 any other ideas than those which you call quix 
 otic, and if I should withdraw now, under the 
 the existing conditions, I do not believe I 
 could ever have enough self-respect again to 
 try to make another start." 
 
 " I can assure you, Sid, that the ' chance ' 
 which you propose to take is hopeless. It is 
 several years too soon for any man to make a 
 winning race in Kentucky on the lines you 
 expect to follow. The time may come when 
 there will be enough voters in this State who 
 do their own thinking to elect a Congressman, 
 but that time is not yet. Don't deceive yourself 
 that it is, because you have found that a great 
 many of them approved your course in the 
 Legislature. All those estimable people don't 
 live in this Congressional district. You might
 
 The Issue Joined 101 
 
 give me a good fight in Luttroll County, but 
 there are a dozen other counties in the district 
 in which your personal popularity won't count 
 for so much. Those counties are all dominated 
 by the old school of politics. They are Demo 
 cratic to-day for no better reason than that they 
 were Democratic twenty-five or thirty years 
 ago, and that it has never been considered 
 good form since the war to be anything but 
 Democratic. They are Democratic for no better 
 reason than the mountain counties could give 
 for being Republican. Their political duties 
 make but little demand on them. They allow 
 the wire-pullers to control their primaries and 
 conventions, and they religiously ' vote the 
 ticket ' which the wire-pullers name. That is 
 why it will be easy for me to beat you, Sid." 
 
 " Then it is not particularly material to you 
 whether I withdraw or not," Garrard laughed. 
 
 " People who don't know me as well as you 
 do might infer that I was making a clumsy 
 argument in my own behalf. I want you to 
 withdraw for two reasons. One is that it would 
 save me considerable work in organizing the 
 district ; the other is that it would save you a 
 needless defeat. It is not necessary for me to 
 tell you that I have liked you ever since you
 
 IO2 The Opponents 
 
 were a young boy, and I wish to see you suc 
 ceed where you do not insist on crossing my 
 own path. Perhaps it will be news to you that, 
 though I have called you quixotic, and though 
 you obstructed some of my plans, your conduct 
 in the Legislature had no greater admirer than 
 I. It was splendid, though it was premature. 
 When the new order of things comes in Ken 
 tucky your day may come with it, unless you 
 rashly sacrifice yourself to prematureness. 
 Don't do it. Wait a little. Your day could 
 not come yet, even if mine were not at hand, 
 but when it does come it will be a better day 
 than mine. If I were your age I might choose 
 the road you have chosen, but as it is I must 
 reach my ends by the road which I know, and 
 which, as yet, is the only road to those ends. 
 You are thirty ; I shall be fifty before you are 
 thirty-five. It will be an advantage to you to 
 wait; I cannot afford to wait. As yet the old 
 order of things obtains in Kentucky. That is 
 for me, not for you. You and your followers 
 call me a boss of the machine. Well, political 
 parties in this State are to-day merely soulless 
 machines, and move aimlessly except to 
 antagonize each other only as they are 
 moved by those who understand how to
 
 The Issue Joined 103 
 
 operate machines. The Democratic machine 
 is the bigger, and I think I have now got to a 
 position where I can reach and hold the 
 throttle-valve. Why throw yourself in front of 
 the engine ? If I were not so sure of the result, 
 and if I did not have a real regard for you, I 
 should prefer that you remain on the track. 
 It was you who made the issue with the machine 
 in the Legislature ; if there is to be a continu 
 ance of that issue it would signalize the su 
 premacy of the machine if the representative 
 of the opposition it is to crush should be you." 
 
 Tunstall relighted his cigar, and Garrard, 
 who had been thoughtfully watching the smoke- 
 rings from his own lips, turned his eyes upon 
 his companion and replied : 
 
 " I think I understand you, Mr. Tunstall, 
 and I am grateful, honestly, for your consider 
 ation for me ; but I can't see the question of 
 expediency as you do, and I can't do other 
 wise than make the best fight I know how." 
 
 "All right, Sid," Tunstall answered with a 
 tone of finality. " I felt almost sure this would 
 be your decision, and I 'm genuinely sorry that 
 it is ; for there is no one in the district I should 
 not prefer to fight." 
 
 Garrard extended his hand impulsively.
 
 IO4 The Opponents 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Tunstall," he said; "it 
 would be a great thing if we could fight on the 
 same side some time." 
 
 "On your side?" smiled Tunstall, as he 
 grasped the other's hand. 
 
 Garrard laughed confession. 
 
 " Perhaps, Sid ; but at present it would be a 
 losing fight; and, unlike you, I cannot find 
 glory in defeat." 
 
 The two sat long after that, talking of other 
 things ; and when Garrard finally left, Tunstall 
 watched him ride away and smoked another 
 cigar meditatively. 
 
 Tunstall had been insincere in nothing he 
 had said to Garrard. Considering the disparity 
 of their ages, the two were good friends. The 
 older man, especially, was fond of the younger, 
 what appealed to him most in Sidney Garrard 
 being the very qualities lacking in himself 
 youthful enthusiasm, optimism, and the impol 
 itic audacity with which the untried Speaker 
 had refused to obey the mandates of the party 
 organization when he believed them wrong, 
 even though he owed his election to the Speak- 
 ership to that organization. Tunstall knew 
 that the most effective way to confirm his own 
 power in this organization was to administer a
 
 The Issue Joined 105 
 
 decisive defeat to the man who had refused to 
 use his office received from the party to 
 further the enactment of the party's chief 
 strategic measure. He was sure that it would 
 be easy to administer such a defeat; yet he 
 preferred, such was his liking for Garrard, that 
 he should stand aside and not invite this chas 
 tisement. Some time, when the spirit of inde 
 pendence was less aggressive in Garrard and 
 stronger in the party, there might be a future 
 for him, but there was small promise of a 
 future if he insisted on making an issue now of 
 his independence. 
 
 Tunstall, though like most politicians of his 
 type he would do many things in politics that 
 he would not think of doing outside of politics, 
 was neither dishonest nor corrupt. He had 
 taken up politics as divertisement. He liked 
 activity and power. He believed in himself, 
 his own integrity and ability, more than he 
 believed in the leaders or even the rank and 
 file of political parties. When he entered the 
 " game " he did not insist on introducing a new 
 deck of cards of his own invention. He played 
 it with the cards at hand. He saw that one 
 party was all-powerful in the State, and he set 
 himself to make that party his instrument.
 
 106 The Opponents 
 
 Heretofore he had been satisfied with winning, 
 with putting into office men of his own selec 
 tion. But he had finally reached a point where 
 this palled on him. He wanted a new and 
 wider scope for his energies. He could not 
 find it in doing the same thing over and over 
 in the State. His eyes turned to the National 
 stage of action. He saw there a vast stage, 
 indeed, poorly filled by figures most of whom 
 he knew to be much smaller than himself, blind 
 to their opportunities for statesmanship and 
 impotent to seize them if they could have seen 
 them. When Sidney Garrard was elected 
 Speaker of the lower house of the Legislature 
 Tunstall had determined that he would go to 
 the United States Senate, and that the next 
 election for United States Senator, four years 
 ahead, should give him his credentials. His 
 first step was the Redistricting Bill, by which 
 the Legislature was to be made sure for his 
 party against any possible encroachment. 
 That had unexpectedly failed through Gar- 
 rard's obstinacy, but the failure was of little real 
 consequence. It would be almost impossible, 
 even under the existing apportionment, for the 
 Democrats to lose control of the Legislature. 
 The work before Tunstall was to maintain his
 
 The Issue Joined 107 
 
 party leadership and to lend a vigilant scrutiny 
 to the selection of the Democratic majority in 
 the new Legislature. In the mean time he 
 would add to his prestige and begin his public 
 life with a term in the lower branch of Congress. 
 If Sidney Garrard persisted in getting in Tun- 
 stall's way here also, the result could only add 
 further to Tunstall's prestige. Nevertheless, 
 he was sorry for Garrard, and would have been 
 pleased if he had been prudent enough to retire 
 from the field.
 
 A WINNING AND LOSING SPEECH 
 
 GARRARD had not seen Margaret Helm since 
 her visit to Florence Letcher, nearly four years 
 before. He had made it convenient to pass 
 through Virginia, a few months after Margaret's 
 departure from Kentucky, and he had left the 
 train at the little town in which she lived, but 
 when he called at her home he learned that she 
 was at the death-bed of Elsie Russell, and he 
 continued his journey without any further effort 
 to see Margaret. He knew, from an occasional 
 remark of Margaret herself and from the less 
 reserved testimony of Florence Letcher, that 
 there was no one to whom Margaret was so 
 devoted as to Elsie Russell, and he felt that 
 even to recall his existence to Margaret then 
 would be an inconsiderate intrusion. Shortly 
 after Elsie's death, Margaret, in her grief, had 
 gone abroad, where she had remained for over 
 three years. It was only this spring that she 
 had returned, and Garrard was planning to
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 109 
 
 repeat his journey through Virginia when 
 Florence Letcher revitalized the world by telling 
 him that Margaret was coming to Kentucky 
 soon for another visit. 
 
 She came before Garrard, as he had under 
 stood Florence, had expected. He had been 
 making a ten days' speaking tour of some of 
 the adjoining counties, and he had returned 
 just in time to fill his appointment at Plover. 
 The crowd had already assembled around the 
 wooden stand, erected in the grove in front of 
 the little church. He was in excellent spirits 
 as he rode up. His ten days' trip had been 
 most encouraging. He knew that he had made 
 votes and gained ground that Tunstall would 
 have never thought of conceding him. He and 
 Blitzen were fresh from an inspiriting canter of 
 a dozen miles in the breeze-stirred, perfume- 
 breathing May morning, along spongy dirt 
 roads and smooth turnpikes. Leaving Blitzen 
 and pausing only to speak to Kate Cockerill, 
 who, with some friends, was seated in a surrey 
 on the outskirts of the crowd, Garrard sprang 
 upon the improvised platform, greeted by hand 
 claps, cheers, and familiar personal invocations. 
 Several of the party leaders had seats on the 
 stand, prominent among them being John W.
 
 iio The Opponents 
 
 Driggs, Squire Bodine, and Shelby Letcher, who 
 assumed these positions because it was a Demo 
 cratic speaking Garrard having announced 
 his candidacy " subject to the action of the 
 Democratic party" and not because they 
 were committed to the support of the speaker. 
 Indeed, it was doubted that any one of this 
 trio would " come out " for Garrard. John W. 
 Driggs certainly would not, unless Garrard 
 could demonstrate that his chance was better 
 to win than Tunstall's; Squire Bodine would 
 follow Driggs ; while it was known that Shelby 
 Letcher had never been able to understand 
 how one to whom he had so fondly expounded 
 the doctrines of " Democracy unterrified and 
 undefiled" had wandered astray as Sidney 
 Garrard had wandered as Speaker of the House. 
 Indeed, Shelby Letcher was heard to address 
 the young man occasionally now as " Mr. Gar 
 rard " instead of " Sid." 
 
 The audience was one to stimulate Garrard 
 to his best. It was made up of people who 
 had known him all his life, who had liked him 
 and laughed at him, but who now, having seen 
 that there was more in him than they had 
 merely liked or laughed at, were disposed to 
 consider him more seriously. There were some
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 1 1 1 
 
 who had begun to take a pride in him, as " a 
 Luttroll County boy," because of his growing 
 reputation, although not all of these could rec 
 oncile themselves to his occasional tendency 
 to irreverence of party traditions and discipline. 
 He had been speaking for ten or fifteen 
 minutes, and he could see that he was making 
 a good impression. The young men in the 
 andience were particularly responsive. A group 
 of them, led by Nixon, was the centre of the 
 applause. Dunk Peabody, who had climbed 
 to the limb of a tree, was frantically waving his 
 hat and his heels, and although the speech had 
 in no way touched on Dunk's hobby, at every 
 point well received by those below him he was 
 jubilantly yelling out : " Tha' 's the ticket, Sid- 
 die ! Give it to the plutycrats ! Hit 'em 
 ag'in!" There was a slight stir on the edge 
 of the crowd as a carriage drew up, and an 
 other voice swallowed that of Dunk Peabody 
 with a cry of " Hurrah for Tunstall ! " The 
 cry was repeated by several other robust 
 throats, and looking in that direction, Garrard 
 saw Morgan Tunstall's high English phaeton, 
 and Tunstall, who held the reins, making a 
 quick, imperious gesture that instantly quelled 
 the noisy greeting of his partisans.
 
 112 The Opponents 
 
 By Tunstall's side was Mrs. Letcher, and 
 Garrard, following Tunstall's smiling glance 
 as he turned to speak to some one on the rear 
 seat, faltered in the middle of one of his strong 
 est periods as he saw that Tunstall's answering 
 smile was from Margaret Helm, who with 
 Florence Letcher completed Tunstall's party. 
 
 For two seconds Garrard's heart seemed 
 locked ; his voice fluttered and his strong 
 period died away incoherently and indistinctly. 
 The argument that he was developing had 
 snapped short and left him without a foothold ; 
 the train of thought that he was following had 
 ended in an abrupt blank into which his words 
 stumbled weakly and aimlessly. It was Dunk 
 Peabody who seemed to save him from what 
 some of his friends feared was a threatened 
 and inexplicable " break-down." 
 
 "Thes you all wait tell he gits good an* 
 ready," shouted Dunk ; " then fare you well, 
 Mr. Plutycrats ! " 
 
 Garrard looked up at Dunk with a laugh, 
 and then glancing again at Margaret Helm, 
 met her eyes for the first time and was thrilled 
 by what he thought he saw in them an ex 
 pression of bewilderment and of concern lest 
 he acquit himself disappointingly.
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 1 1 3 
 
 But he had caught his mental balance now, 
 and he proceeded with his speech consistently 
 and with good effect. Indeed, after his mo 
 mentary stumble, he seemed to have gathered 
 himself together for a more vigorous effort, 
 and his gain in fervor and force was so notable 
 that a reporter for a Louisville paper, who had 
 followed him on his round of appointments, 
 wrote that "after he was fairly warmed up, his 
 Plover speech was by odds the best that Mr. 
 Garrard has yet delivered." If the reporter 
 had understood the explanation he might have 
 added, with characteristic flippancy and per 
 spicacity " thanks though it be to the pres 
 ence among his auditors of one who could not 
 even vote for him." 
 
 Determined as he was that a Luttroll County 
 audience should not have cause to be ashamed 
 of him, and bending all his energies to that 
 end, Garrard yet had the practical speaker's 
 facility for noting and apprehending incidental 
 accompaniments of his speech's reception with 
 out deflecting or weakening the course of his 
 thought. He realized that among the young 
 men around Nixon who were making such 
 demonstrations in his favor was the heartiest 
 sympathy that he aroused, and that to such 
 8
 
 H4 The Opponents 
 
 as these he must look mainly for the success of 
 the movement in which he had enlisted. He 
 realized that among many of the older farmers 
 there were admiration for him as a youngster 
 they had always liked, admiration for his 
 powers as a speaker, and only partial compre 
 hension of the points he sought to press and 
 sometimes even less acceptance of them. He 
 realized that Dunk Peabody, on his perch in 
 the tree, was becoming more and more mysti 
 fied why the climax of pitching into the pluto 
 crats was not reached, and more and more 
 impatient that it should be reached. Most 
 clearly of all he realized, every moment, the 
 presence of Margaret Helm. Turn which way 
 he would, the one face in the throng that he 
 saw, or subconsciously felt, was hers, more 
 beautiful than he had known it before, with the 
 softer, deeper beauty that sorrow and four 
 years of life had added to it. He knew that 
 she listened to him and watched him atten 
 tively; that she was not disappointed in his 
 speech ; that once she and Kate Cockerill ex 
 changed glances in which there was something 
 very different from disappointment. (It was 
 immediately after this that he rose to what the 
 reporter described as " his finest flight of elo-
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 1 1 5 
 
 quence," which so excited Dunk Peabody that 
 he lost his tree and in his fall crushed into a 
 cockade that well-known and long-known land 
 mark of the community, Hi Jaynes' Sunday 
 " stove-pipe.") Moreover, long before he had 
 finished his speech, he understood that Marga 
 ret Helm and Morgan Tunstall were on good 
 terms, very good, considering that they could 
 have known each other hardly more than a 
 week. Tunstall turned to Margaret frequently 
 with a nod of approval or a word of comment 
 on the speech. Garrard noticed that each 
 quickly looked at the other, as they applauded, 
 as for confirmation of a good opinion. It was 
 after cumulative evidence of this that the 
 orator launched into what some of his friends 
 deprecated as a needlessly impolitic passage, 
 noted by the reporter as " a savage onslaught 
 on hide-bound Bourbonism, in which he boldly 
 proclaimed that he pitched his campaign on 
 the living issues of the present, and that he 
 wanted the votes of no man because of the 
 politics of that man's grandfather, or because 
 that man wore either the blue or the gray, or 
 was the son of a man who wore the blue or the 
 gray, in a war that was fought and ended be 
 fore he (Garrard) was born."
 
 116 The Opponents 
 
 He concluded his speech very simply. " I 
 have tried to present to you clearly," he said, 
 " the grounds on which I ask this nomination 
 for Congress. I have tried to explain to you 
 distinctly why I am a Democrat and what I 
 believe to be the best interests of the party 
 and the country. If you will allow me to revise 
 that phrase, I will say the best interests of the 
 country and the party. With me the country 
 shall always have precedence over any party. I 
 am a Democrat, but before that I am an Ameri 
 can ; I am a Southerner, but above that I am 
 an American ; I am a Kentuckian, but some of 
 my old friends here may call it treason when I 
 say that were the choice forced on me, and I 
 could not be both an American and a Ken 
 tuckian, then I should proudly be an Ameri 
 can." (" I be Tom Walkered if he ain't gone 
 back on States Rights ! " growled Shelby 
 Letcher to Squire Bodine.) " I have been 
 told by those who wish to see me win this race 
 that I am guilty of bad politics that I am un 
 necessarily imprudent in declaring my views, 
 in answering questions that are not asked me 
 but it seems to me that I have no right to 
 your votes, nor could I wish them, without 
 frankly revealing the grounds on which I seek
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 117 
 
 this nomination and election ; and my one aim 
 this afternoon has been to be unreservedly 
 frank." 
 
 As Garrard finished and turned to leave the 
 stand, Squire Bodine, who had risen, with the 
 other distinguished occupants on the platform, 
 held out his hand, as a matter of habit on such 
 occasions. 
 
 " You made a good speech, Sid," he said ; 
 " about as good as could be made for your 
 side of the case, I reckon : but I 'm afraid you 
 have n't made many votes by it." 
 
 " There 's one he 's lost," confessed Shelby 
 Letcher, " and I 'm sorry of it. I Ve been hold 
 ing off till I heard this speech, Sidney, but I '11 
 have to come out for Tunstall now. I 'm too 
 old a dog to learn new tricks." 
 
 " I Ve never supposed you would not be for 
 Tunstall, Mr. Letcher," Garrard said, as he 
 helped the old gentleman down the rude steps 
 of the stand. " I 'm sorry, too ; but I '11 have 
 to be satisfied with dividing the family with 
 Tunstall. Hugh is for me." 
 
 " And I believe Florence is for you. Still it 
 may yet be a tie between you and Tunstall 
 over at the Tavern. There 's Margaret, you 
 know," smiling drily ; " I don't believe she 's
 
 1 1 8 The Opponents 
 
 made up her mind between you two yet, but 
 Tunstall has been carrying on a pretty strong 
 campaign at the Tavern while you were out in 
 the district." 
 
 Garrard felt his face burning in spite of 
 himself. 
 
 "Tunstall's campaigns are always strong," 
 he smiled back at the old fellow. 
 
 Others were crowding around Garrard to 
 speak to him, and Nixon and his satellites 
 were so demonstrative that Garrard could 
 not see whether Tunstall's party, in whose 
 direction he was trying to make his way, had 
 yet driven off. Dunk Peabody also lounged 
 up, his hands deep in his pockets, his counte 
 nance a ludicrous compromise between un 
 certainty and exultation. 
 
 " By Ned ! " he drawled, " we did give 'em 
 holy smoke, did n't we, Sid? " 
 
 " Never say die, Dunk ! " shouted some 
 one. " Maybe he'll get to the plutycrats next 
 time ! " 
 
 Tunstall himself was now pressing Garrard's 
 hand, and was saying, in the quiet, straight 
 forward way which would have carried convic 
 tion of the speaker's sincerity even if Garrard 
 had known him so poorly as to doubt it :
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 119 
 
 " It was a good speech, Sidney the best 
 this crowd has ever heard. In fact, it was so 
 much too good for the most of us," a smile 
 lighting his eyes, " that I think it will make as 
 many votes for me as for you. But come with 
 me. There are some friends of yours over 
 here who are waiting to congratulate you." 
 
 "On making votes for you?" Garrard an 
 swered, laughing shortly, as he went with Tun- 
 stall toward the ladies. He felt that it was a 
 small and ungracious spirit which his retort 
 showed, but for the time he did not regret it. 
 That was the spirit which Tunstall had aroused 
 in him. 
 
 " I fear not," was Tunstall's reply. " You 
 could never make too good a speech for that 
 part of your audience." 
 
 Garrard, as he walked forward with Tunstall, 
 did not try to shake off this petty spirit. There 
 is a perverse satisfaction, akin to luxury, in the 
 lapse, on certain provocations, of natures which 
 are far from petty themselves into conscious 
 and unashamed pettiness. In some such mood 
 Garrard inwardly resented the part that Tun 
 stall was playing this afternoon. The resent 
 ment began the instant he had seen Tunstall 
 here with Margaret Helm. He resented the
 
 1 20 The Opponents 
 
 fact that at his first sight of Margaret after 
 these four years she should be in the company 
 and under the protection of Tunstall. He re 
 sented the fact that it was to hear him speak 
 that Tunstall had brought Margaret to Plover. 
 He resented the footing of familiarity with 
 Margaret on which Tunstall seemed to have 
 placed himself. He resented the glances of 
 sympathetic approbation that had passed be 
 tween them as they listened to his speech. He 
 resented the incident that it was even Tunstall 
 who had sought him out in the crowd to take 
 him to this first meeting with Margaret after 
 so long a separation a meeting under con 
 ditions very different from those he had looked 
 forward to in his four years' dreams of it. 
 He resented the thought that had come over 
 him, against his will, as he saw Margaret and 
 Tunstall together, that here were two people 
 whom Nature, in lavish mood and unerring 
 law, had fashioned for each other. 
 
 But he forgot his small resentments when he 
 stood in Margaret Helm's presence once more. 
 There was such sincere welcome in her eyes 
 and in her voice as she spoke the few simple 
 words of greeting, and, beyond that, he was so 
 sensible of something, in her manner, in her
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 1 2 1 
 
 tone, which seemed to indicate a new and more 
 respectful attitude toward him, that all trivial 
 irritation was at once allayed. With Margaret 
 Helm not only glad to see him but placing 
 him on a plane of manhood which he had felt 
 she had never quite conceded him in the old 
 days, the moment was not one for harboring 
 trivial irritations. For the time Garrard was 
 no longer disturbed by the well-meant officious- 
 ness of Morgan Tunstall, or by the possibility 
 of having so formidable a competitor as Tun- 
 stall in other fields than politics. 
 
 He was glad that Margaret barely referred 
 to his speech, and then in a lightly conven 
 tional way. He knew that she liked it. He 
 had watched her so closely while he was speak 
 ing that nothing she could have said here, in 
 the presence of Tunstall and the Letchers, 
 could have indicated to him more clearly the 
 impression he had made upon her, which, as 
 he had already interpreted it, intoxicated him 
 with triumph, whether he was to win or lose 
 the race he had entered. He would not have 
 had her congratulate him here, even with the 
 moderate effusiveness of Florence Letcher, to 
 say nothing of the extravagant praise of Mrs. 
 Letcher.
 
 122 The Opponents 
 
 " I don't know anything about politics, Sid 
 ney," that lady exclaimed, " and I don't want 
 to know ; but I do know the speech was just 
 grand, because because it sounded grand, 
 and because it made me cry and nobody 
 noticed me do it because everybody was pay 
 ing such close attention to you. Besides, Mr. 
 Tunstall says he never heard a finer speech, 
 and Mr. Tunstall knows all about such things ; 
 and Margaret well, Margaret does n't know 
 any more about politics than I do, but she 
 says she understood every word I asked her 
 that point-blank and what 's more, she says 
 she does n't see how your speech can be an 
 swered, which is pretty hard, / think, on Mr. 
 Tunstall." 
 
 " It can't be answered," Tunstall smiled, 
 " and I shall not try. But fortunately for me, 
 as I Ve been telling Sidney, people are not 
 sent to Congress from this district because 
 they make unanswerable speeches." 
 
 Garrard, promising himself that the evening 
 should find him at Letcher Tavern, mounted 
 Blitzen and rode slowly homeward, ignoring 
 for once the opportunity for electioneering 
 offered by the unusual crowd in Plover. He 
 had no spirit for such work to-day. He had
 
 A Winning and Losing Speech 123 
 
 no thought of politics now. He saw only the 
 lovely face that had dawned for him on the 
 edge of the rough crowd he had addressed 
 that afternoon, and his pulses were beating 
 only to the new elation of Margaret Helm's 
 return.
 
 XI 
 
 THE PRELIMINARY HAND-CLASP 
 
 THE following month was far from satisfactory 
 to Sidney Garrard. He could have devoted 
 that month ardently to either his political can 
 vass or to Margaret Helm. He tried to divide 
 it between the two, and compromises were 
 never to his liking. It was June again now, but 
 a very different June from the one, four years 
 before, which he had devoted, as much as she 
 would let him, to Margaret Helm. He knew 
 that he could not afford to allow his campaign 
 to lag. His only chance of winning the nom 
 ination was in a thorough, vigorous effort to 
 win it. The district was large ; the convention 
 was to be held in August : it was essential that 
 he should make good use of June. But it was 
 the hardest task he had yet set himself riding 
 over other counties while Margaret Helm was 
 in Luttroll County, and only there until July. 
 "Kit," he said to Kate Cockerill one day,
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 125 
 
 with a return of his old boyish spirit, " I'll 
 play you a game of Suppose." 
 
 "Suppose " she assented, ever ready to 
 enter into his humor. 
 
 " Suppose a man were in love with a woman 
 the right sort of woman." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And suppose he were in love with well, 
 going to Congress." 
 
 " I think I might possibly make both suppo 
 sitions," Kate smiled. 
 
 " Suppose she were where he could see her 
 every day or two for a month, and suppose 
 that he felt if he gave up that month to see 
 ing her he might lose his chance for Congress." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Suppose also that if he did n't give up that 
 month to seeing her he felt that he might lose 
 his chance for her." 
 
 " But would n't it be fair to suppose, if she 
 were ' the right sort of woman,' that by thus 
 throwing away his chance for Congress he 
 might weaken rather than strengthen his 
 chance for her?" 
 
 " You are taking the game away from me, 
 Kit. I was going to ask you if such a suppo 
 sition might not be in order."
 
 I 26 The Opponents 
 
 " I think it would be at least with one girl 
 . I know." 
 
 " Though it might please her, in a way that 
 women can't help being pleased, if he threw 
 away all other chances for the one chance for 
 her?" 
 
 "Yes; but there is a possibility that it might 
 disappoint her more than it would please 
 her." 
 
 " Unless she knew that the man was abso 
 lutely sure, he would lose her if he did not 
 throw away his chance for Congress ? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps. But that supposition is not 
 permissible in this game, is it? " 
 
 " Kit, you are a woman in a million. You 
 always agree with me perfectly ! If if others 
 were more like you, there would be lots less 
 trouble in the world for some people I know." 
 
 So Garrard kept most of his campaign ap 
 pointments, changing some of them to regions 
 nearer home, that he might run in and spend 
 an hour or two at Letcher Tavern at least once 
 a week. 
 
 It was a cruel course to hold himself to, 
 especially as it was evident that Morgan Tun- 
 stall was not risking any of his chances for 
 Margaret Helm by leaving her and travelling
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 127 
 
 over the district in pursuit of the nomination 
 for Congress. Tunstall as yet had made no 
 speeches. He had not proposed a speaking 
 campaign. He relied upon other methods. 
 True, he recognized the fact that a candidacy 
 for Congress in Kentucky was essentially 
 one that, from immemorial custom, implied 
 a certain amount of oratory as a matter of 
 course. He knew that it was no more ques 
 tioned that a candidate for Congress would 
 " take the stump " than it was doubted that, if 
 successful, he would be expected to " take 
 care of his friends." Tunstall was too good 
 a politician to ignore this tradition and condi 
 tion entirely. He intended to observe it to a 
 sufficient degree to satisfy the proprieties. He 
 had announced his purpose to make a few 
 speeches throughout the district in July. But 
 he was not relying on those speeches to secure 
 him the nomination. Nor was he waiting till 
 July to secure it. He had taken quick trips in 
 May to the various county seats, and in June 
 several of his lieutenants, of whom John W. 
 Driggs was now one, had taken other trips 
 over the district in his interest, to say nothing 
 of the local leaders in different counties who, 
 on special invitation, had paid Tunstall quiet
 
 128 The Opponents 
 
 visits at Tunstall Paddocks. Garrard was not 
 ignorant of the situation. Wherever he went 
 he found Tunstall's " organization " strong. 
 He discovered that a majority of the local 
 "workers" and committeemen the men who 
 were to preside, with autocratic authority, at 
 the opening of the primary conventions, and 
 who would " organize " those conventions for 
 the candidate of their choice, were already for 
 Tunstall. Naturally cheerful though Garrard 
 was, there was many a moment as he made his 
 way over the district that hot and dusty June 
 when he was sick at heart. He was fighting 
 an opponent who not only seemed to have his 
 victory won, but who was availing himself of 
 the advantage which that gave him to remain 
 at home and seek another victory, in compari 
 son with which all other victories were nothing 
 to Garrard. 
 
 For Garrard was sure that Tunstall intended 
 to do what he could to win Margaret Helm. 
 When a man loves he is ever ready to suspect 
 that every other man loves the same woman ; 
 indeed, he never quite understands why every 
 other man does not love her. He is sure that 
 every man does who shows a partiality for her. 
 And Tunstall had done much more than show a
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 1 29 
 
 partiality for Margaret Helm. Since Garrard 
 had known him he had had little to do with 
 women ; certainly he had never seemed to care 
 for one above another ; nor had he given the 
 least indication that he thought of marrying 
 again. But it was evident to Garrard now that 
 Tunstall intended to try to marry Margaret 
 Helm. The extraordinary impression she had 
 made on Tunstall ; the change in the routine of 
 his life ; his open, assiduous proofs of his pref 
 erence for her society; his attitude of respectful 
 deference and intimate comradeship ; his frank, 
 quiet joy in the new conditions that had come 
 into his life, were all noticed by Garrard, little 
 as he had been at Letcher Tavern since Mar 
 garet's return. Moreover, Garrard was sure 
 that there was something exceptional in Marga 
 ret's liking for Tunstall. Garrard had passed 
 the period when he had feared no rival, and he 
 felt that he could have no more dangerous 
 rival for such a girl as Margaret than Mor 
 gan Tunstall. Curiously distinct and insis 
 tent now was his recollection of Margaret's 
 manner and words four years before, as she 
 had said, after looking at the portrait of Tun 
 stall : " I have never seen a face that impressed 
 me more with its strength and power. I should 
 9
 
 i 30 The Opponents 
 
 not like to be either the man or the mob to 
 cross the will of Mr. Tunstall." 
 
 Garrard was not mistaken. Tunstall, for the 
 second time in his life and for the first time in 
 his full maturity, loved. He had never thought 
 that possible in all the years since the annul 
 ment of his marriage. He had gone his way, 
 among men, killing time with his game of pol 
 itics, in which the players were always men. 
 Women had had no place in his personal rela 
 tions or purposes. And yet Margaret Helm had 
 suddenly taken such a dominant place in them 
 as to work a complete revolution in his outlook, 
 his desires, and, if not altogether in his plans, 
 in their spirit. He had no thought of abandon 
 ing those plans. On the contrary, he would 
 follow them out with a new zest. He would 
 play his game now not for the mere love of 
 playing, not solely for the exercise of power 
 and the attainment of eminence for the better 
 exercise of power, but for the exercise of 
 power that Margaret Helm might the more 
 respect him; for the winning of honors that 
 Margaret Helm, as his wife, might be hon 
 ored. If he had been successful before, with 
 only the tokens of the game as stakes, he 
 meant to be he felt that he would be in-
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 131 
 
 vincible with the inspiration of Margaret's 
 pride and happiness to recreate him. It would 
 still be something to demonstrate his power for 
 the sake of demonstrating it, but it would be 
 more to demonstrate it for Margaret's sake. 
 It would be little enough, and yet the thought 
 of it was a strange new elixir, to make Marga 
 ret the wife of a Senator, an Ambassador, per 
 haps Why not? Kentucky will yet furnish 
 other Presidents for the Republic. 
 
 Truly the fallow acres of Tunstall Paddocks, 
 so long run wild to weeds and thickets, had 
 not been more signally metamorphosed into 
 upturned, fructifying fields by Tunstall's re 
 sumed management than had been the fallow 
 soul of Tunstall himself by the influence of 
 Margaret Helm. 
 
 Sidney Garrard postponed a speaking ap 
 pointment in an adjoining county, in order to 
 run down to Letcher Tavern the day before 
 that set for Margaret's departure. Accom 
 panied by Mrs. Letcher and Florence, Margaret 
 was to leave for one of the Alleghany summer 
 resorts where she was to remain until fall, and 
 where Garrard expected to take a few weeks' 
 rest after the meeting of the convention to 
 nominate a candidate for Congress. But the
 
 132 The Opponents 
 
 convention was more than a month in the 
 future, and in the mean time he would have no 
 other opportunity of seeing Margaret Helm. 
 For once Garrard departed from his rule, and 
 the yeomen of the Big Bend district in Grier 
 County "the Old Stamping Ground of the 
 True Blue Democracy " were notified through 
 handbills and the county press that, owing to 
 important changes in the plans of the Hon. 
 Sidney Garrard, he would be unable to address 
 them at Big Bend until the third Tuesday in 
 July. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Garrard 
 reached Letcher Tavern. Margaret and Flor 
 ence, Shelby Letcher and Tunstall were on the 
 lawn. Tunstall left almost immediately after 
 Garrard joined the group. 
 
 "Walk with me to the gate, Sidney," he 
 said, taking Garrard's arm, "and tell me the 
 news from Grier County." 
 
 As the two went slowly toward the gate, Tun 
 stall showed a disposition to impart rather than 
 seek news. 
 
 " Better throw it up, Sidney," he said. " It is 
 not your time yet. You won't have a delegate 
 from Grier. You have a good chance to carry 
 Trowbridge, Croxton, and Bascom counties,
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 133 
 
 and if you can carry this county and 'the 
 Pocket,' you '11 be in the race. This county 
 as yet is uncertain, but the Pocket is n't." 
 
 Garrard smiled. Tunstall was not so well 
 informed as he thought. If Garrard was sure 
 of one thing about the campaign, it was that 
 the Pocket was opposed to Tunstall. But his 
 smile faded as Tunstall went on: 
 
 " At present the Pocket does not like 
 me. It may even stand solidly against me 
 in the convention. But it won't be for you, 
 Sidney." 
 
 " I think I have some chance there," Garrard 
 replied modestly. 
 
 " None whatever. I believe you could beat 
 me there; but has it never occurred to you 
 that the Pocket's delegates might go to the 
 convention committed to neither of us, but 
 instructed for one of the Pocket's own favorite 
 sons? " 
 
 Garrard threw a quick glance at Tunstall. 
 
 " No," he answered ; " I have seen nothing 
 to indicate that." 
 
 " But you are likely to see it at the proper 
 time. Don't you think that such a man as, 
 say Poindexter, could control every delegate 
 from the Pocket?"
 
 134 The Opponents 
 
 " I think it very probable ; but Poindexter is 
 not a candidate." 
 
 Tunstall looked straight at Garrard two 
 seconds before speaking. 
 
 " He will be if I wish it." 
 
 " Ah ! " Garrard responded with raised brows, 
 after another two seconds. " I see." 
 
 "And with Poindexter holding the Pocket 
 and you having Trowbridge, Croxton, Bascom, 
 and even Grier and Luttroll counties, don't 
 you see that the best you could hope for would 
 be a deadlock?" 
 
 " Your reasoning is fair." 
 
 " And there would be only one way to break 
 the deadlock. You could never throw your 
 following to Poindexter against me, and you 
 would n't do it if you could. I should not 
 throw my following to you, because that would 
 not be in the plan at all. The one outcome, 
 you will agree, would be that ultimately Poin 
 dexter would break the deadlock by withdraw 
 ing and giving me enough of his votes to 
 nominate me." 
 
 "Your reasoning is still fair," Garrard 
 smiled. 
 
 " You see, from the first I have shown you 
 my hand. Why foolishly try to beat it? "
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 135 
 
 "It is a strong hand, I admit; but the only 
 way to beat it is to try." 
 
 " You are making a good fight, Sidney, and 
 against any other opponent I should like to see 
 you win. But I am pretty sure you can't, and 
 I don't think you really believe you can. Bet 
 ter quit now and wait till another time." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Tunstall, but my mind is 
 unalterable on that point." 
 
 " I have not hoped that it was n't. Well, I 
 am sorry. I am downright sorry, Sidney. It 
 will be a little more work for me, but I hate to 
 see you make this mistake," smiling slightly. 
 
 " I understand you thoroughly," Garrard 
 replied, with a touch of feeling. " I know you 
 are actuated in what you have said principally 
 by your friendship for me. I am duly grate 
 ful; but we hold very different views on this 
 matter, and I must go on as I have begun." 
 
 They were now talking across the gate, 
 Tunstall standing on the outer side. 
 
 " All right, Sidney. But it was not for this 
 that I asked you to walk down here with me. 
 We Ve got up a little party to show Miss Helm 
 Mammoth Cave, Mrs. Letcher, your sister, 
 and Miss Florence, Hugh, Nixon, and we are 
 counting on you to be the other man. I should
 
 136 The Opponents 
 
 have written or telegraphed you, but the excur 
 sion was only decided on yesterday and Mrs. 
 Cockerill said you would be in to-day. We 
 start to-morrow and expect to be back in three 
 or four days. You '11 be one of us, won't 
 you ? " 
 
 " I thought Miss Helm was to leave for the 
 mountains to-morrow," Garrard answered, not 
 trying to conceal his surprise. 
 
 " She was ; but we convinced her that she 
 should not leave Kentucky without visiting the 
 cave. Have you ever seen the cave?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "Then you can't afford to miss this trip. 
 You could n't afford to miss it, any way, 
 Sidney." 
 
 The two men looked silently across the gate 
 into each other's eyes. 
 
 " Oh, to be his age," was Tunstall's thought, 
 "with my life to live over and youth on my 
 side." 
 
 Garrard was thinking of Margaret Helm's 
 words four years before : " I should not like to 
 be either the man or the mob to cross the will 
 of Mr. Tunstall ; " and thinking, further, that 
 his own will and Tunstall's were inflexibly 
 crossed not once, but twice.
 
 The Preliminary Hand-Clasp 137 
 
 " I will go," he finally replied ; " I shall be 
 glad to go." 
 
 They separated with a hand-clasp, each hav 
 ing a certain feeling that it was not very differ 
 ent from the ceremony with which two antago 
 nists precede a duel to the death.
 
 XII 
 
 A HORSE-BLOCK SYMPOSIUM 
 
 THE next day, Friday, Garrard left with Tun- 
 stall's party for Mammoth Cave. The preceding 
 Sunday there had been some discussion, under 
 the trees around the little Plover church, of a 
 matter that was to complicate the uncertainty 
 of Garrard's securing the vote of his home 
 county in the convention, without which, as 
 was well understood, he could have no chance 
 of getting the nomination. Eight or ten men 
 were loafing in the grove to gossip, as was their 
 custom, before going into the church. 
 
 " Here he is," said one of the group, as a 
 sleepy yellow horse, drawing an old buggy, 
 appeared around the bend of the road. The 
 horse was big, the buggy was low, and all of 
 the driver, " Pap " Maxey, that was visible was 
 a soft drab hat, perched cockily on one side, 
 and beneath it a crinkly face, small, dancing 
 eyes, in which the fountains of perpetual youth 
 might have bubbled, and a sunken mouth,
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 139 
 
 whose thin lips, when not parted in the act 
 of talking or laughing, were incessantly closed 
 and working as if in the act of chewing 
 though chewing what, nobody had ever 
 discovered. 
 
 "Do you reckon he's heerd of it?" asked 
 one of the men in the church grove. 
 
 " Well, he won't say a thing when he does 
 hear ! " exclaimed another. 
 
 " Naw, he won't ! " agreed Dunk Peabody. 
 " He '11 lay over Uncle Jesse Craik when he 's 
 breakin' a colt er prayin' fer rain ! " 
 
 Pap Maxey turned from the road and pulled 
 up his horse. 
 
 " Howdy, boys, howdy ! " he waved his 
 hand in comprehensive response to the noisy 
 salutations of the loungers. 
 
 The old man got out of the buggy with an 
 agility that belied his apparent years. Dunk 
 Peabody helped him take the horse from the 
 shafts and hitched it to the rack, during which 
 time every one was silent and Pap Maxey 
 chewed. Then he joined the group under the 
 trees. 
 
 " Well, boys," he said in a high voice, thin 
 but merry, " what devilw^/ you scamps up to 
 now? I don't never see Dunk Peabody
 
 140 The Opponents 
 
 so polite an' Uncle Jesse Craik so pious 
 'thout knowin' the Old Harry's afoot somers 
 aroun'." 
 
 "Oh, th 1 ain't nothin' ailin' of us, Pap 
 Maxey," answered Uncle Jesse Craik, him 
 self not much younger than the new-comer, 
 for whom he made room on the horse-block. 
 " Some folks mout say it was the Old Harry, 
 an' some folks mout n't." 
 
 " 'Nother toll-gate done fer las' night, Pap," 
 Dunk Peabody volunteered for the crowd. 
 
 " I reckon so," assented Pap Maxey. 
 
 "Yeh." 
 
 "Which one this time?" chewing medita 
 tively. 
 
 "Sibley's Mill," hastened two or three 
 voices. 
 
 "Ag'in?" 
 
 " Finished the job this whirl, Pap : cut down 
 the gate an' burnt down the house." 
 
 "How about Andy?" Andy was the gate 
 keeper. 
 
 " Andy, he got mulish, an' they shot the durn 
 fool in the shoulder." 
 
 " He 's laid up at Sibley's, but Sibley says 
 the doctor says he'll pull th'ough ef blood 
 p'ison don't set in."
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 141 
 
 " Yi, yi," was Pap Maxey's comment, after 
 which he went on chewing. 
 
 "Ain't but one mo' gate in these diggin's 
 now, Pap," somebody suggested. 
 
 " Tha' 's all Conway's," somebody else 
 agreed. 
 
 " Yonder comes Nelse Tigert now ! " another 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, yonder comes Nelse Tigert now I " 
 Pap Maxey repeated, with one of his cackling 
 little laughs, as his small eyes played restlessly 
 upon a tall muscular fellow of thirty-five or 
 forty approaching with a stride whose freedom 
 had a touch of swagger in it. 
 
 Two or three men had joined the party since 
 Pap Maxey's arrival, without attracting any 
 special attention ; but it was as if Nelse 
 Tigert's coming was an event, and had been 
 awaited. 
 
 " Hello, folks ! Why, howdy, Pap ? What 's 
 the good word ? " he called cheerily, throwing 
 himself down on the grass. 
 
 " We was all thes talkin' about you," Pap 
 Maxey answered "anyhow, we was all thes 
 thinkin' about you, Nelse. Toe-be-sho, we was 
 only talkin' about the raidin' of the gate at 
 Sibley's Mill."
 
 142 The Opponents 
 
 Nelse joined in the laughter which followed 
 this. "Was you there, Pap? Tell us all 
 about it." 
 
 " Ef I had 'a' been, Nelse Tigert, they 'd 'a' 
 been mo' 'n Andy got shot." 
 
 " Andy's all right, Pap," Nelse assured him. 
 " I thes come by Sibley's. Still somebody 
 oughter be bucked fer shootin' the galoot; 
 same time, Andy oughter be bucked fer bein' 
 a galoot." 
 
 " Anybody," spoke up Dunk Peabody, 
 " oughter have sense enough to know the 
 people of this county have made up their 
 minds to have free turnpikes, an' free turnpikes 
 they 're a-goin' to have." 
 
 This was received with a chorus of approval. 
 
 " It 's a vanity an' a mockery fer any man to 
 set hisself up ag'in the will o* the people," ob 
 served Uncle Jesse Craik. 
 
 " The will o' the people is all right when it 
 is all right," responded Pap Maxey, pushing 
 his hat to the back of his head, " but the will 
 o' the people is like mighty nigh ev'ything else 
 in this worl' it 's a in-an'-outer ; an' it knows 
 it. That 's why the will o' the people sets up 
 constitutions an' gover'ments an' laws to lay 
 down things which the will o' the people shain't
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 143 
 
 do an' things which the will o' the people shill 
 do. Yes, sir, the will o' the people, ef it is 
 always right, goes to a powerful lot o' trouble 
 to keep itself straight. You boys say the will 
 o' the people has made up its mind to have free 
 turnpikes. Now, free turnpikes is a mighty 
 good thing to have, an* we oughter have 'em, 
 ef we git 'em honis. An' I don't know no way 
 to git 'em honis here but to buy 'em an' make 
 'em free. You pay fer yo' teams, ef you cain't 
 git 'em on tick ; you even pay fer yo' drams 
 ef you cain't git 'em on treats. But you wanter 
 blow up all creation ruther 'n pay fer yo' turn 
 pikes. 'T ain't that you are all paupers. Some 
 o' you don't pay no toll nohow you go afoot 
 ef you cain't git a lift. Dunk Peabody there, 
 he ain't had hair ner hide of a critter sence he 
 los' his las' mule on aces-up; yit Dunk is a- 
 whoopin' loud as anybody fer the will o' the 
 people an' free turnpikes. But 't ain't them 
 that cain't raise no stake, like Dunk, that 's doin' 
 all the devilment. In some counties the gates 
 in the richis neighborhood is the fus to go. Ef 
 you want free turnpikes, why n't you buy an' 
 pay fer 'em, from them that bought an' paid 
 fer 'em, stiddier goin' after dark to rob an* 
 shoot 'em free ? Well, sir, the will o' the peo-
 
 144 The Opponents 
 
 pie has made laws which be it enac's that when 
 the will o' the people takes a notion to rob an' 
 shoot, the jail is the right place fer the will o' 
 the people ; an' the jail is the place where ev'y 
 gallivested scamp that raided that gate las' 
 night oughter be yes, sir-ree, the jail, an' not 
 the church ! " 
 
 Pap Maxey only seemed to amuse the crowd. 
 " You ain't a fair witness, Pap," said one ; " you 
 would n't talk that-away if you did n't own stock 
 in the turnpike." 
 
 " Yes, I own stock I own five sheers. An' 
 I didn't raid no toll-gates fer it, nuther. I 
 worked fer it, like ev'ything else I got. I got 
 my turnpike stock thes like I got my farm. I 
 reckon when you boys burn me outn my turn 
 pike property an' git yo' free turnpikes you '11 
 pitch in an' dynamite me offn my place, ef the 
 will o' the people makes up its mind to have 
 free farms." 
 
 " Say, Pap," he was informed by Dunk Pea- 
 body, "you're away off! Farms is owned by 
 privit individyuls, but turnpikes is owned by 
 copperations ; an' copperations an' m'nop'lies 
 an* all them is gotter go." 
 
 " Yes, the turnpike is owned by a coppera- 
 tion," the old man admitted, " an' ' copperation '
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 145 
 
 is a powerful big word, ain't it? They was a 
 man, one time, they was, who discovered that 
 Nature won't allow no vacyum you know 
 that 's a empty holler an' I reckon Nature 
 invented the word ' copperation ' fer to fill up 
 the empty hollers in the heads of some folks 
 with. Toe-be-sho, ' copperation ' is giner'lly 
 what comes out when they opens their heads." 
 
 There was some chaffing of Dunk at this, but 
 Pap Maxey, as one of his auditors expressed 
 it, had " got his gait now," and did not pause. 
 
 " One of the fus things I learnt in the old 
 blue-back spellin'-book," he continued, " was 
 that copperations is a good thing fer the little 
 fellers, like us. The old man with a raft of 
 sons showed 'em how easy it was to break ev'y 
 stick by itself, but they could n't break narry 
 one when he tied 'em all together. We got up 
 a copperation to build the turnpike because 
 there wa' n't no privit individyul able er willin' 
 to build it. We chipped in because that was 
 the only way to git the road, an' we needed it, 
 an' needed it bad. Befo' we built it there wa' n't 
 a farm 'roun' here that sent hardly anything to 
 market. It wouldn't pay to haul stuff forty 
 mile th'ough the wilderness. Sence we built 
 the pike it is easy to git ev'ything we raise to 
 
 10
 
 146 The Opponents 
 
 the railroad an' railroads is copperations that 
 has done a heap mo' to bring out some States 
 in this country than the States themselves has 
 done an' ev'y acre o' Ian' in the county has 
 doubled and thribbled in price, an' farmers not 
 only makes a good livin', but has somethin' 
 over to buy Sunday clothes, an' patent churns, 
 an' melojuns, an' powder an' lead to shoot cop- 
 peration toll-gate keepers with." 
 
 " Pap 's a-warmin' up now," sang out Nelse 
 Tigert. 
 
 " One po' man, like me or you, ain't no great 
 shakes by hisself, but ten, er fifty, er a hundud 
 po' men clubs in an' makes somethin' mo' 'n 
 tongue and buckle meet. That 's a copperation. 
 Most of the stockholders in our turnpike is po' 
 men ; some is widders an' childun. Same way 
 in mighty nigh all copperations. Yit you honis, 
 hard-workin' privit individyuls wanter wipe out 
 all their property, er gobble it up fer yo'selves. 
 You let these here dummygogue politicians set 
 you crazy. All a man 's gotter do is to take the 
 stump an' shuck his coat an' loose his collar an' 
 light into copperations, an' you wanter send 
 him to Congriss." 
 
 "'Raw fer Garrard ! " shouted Dunk Pea- 
 body.
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 147 
 
 " ' Raw fer Tunstall ! " countered Uncle 
 Jesse Craik. 
 
 " You ain't never heerd Garrard dummy- 
 goguin' ag'in copperations," Pap Maxey 
 snapped. 
 
 " Well, you ain't never heerd Tunstall, 
 nuther ! " Dunk Peabody glared at Uncle 
 Jesse Craik. 
 
 " You thes wait tell Tunstall takes the 
 stump !" challenged Uncle Jesse, with slowly 
 oscillating head. 
 
 "You boys shet up," ordered Pap Maxey 
 " There was that 'ere nigger Gabe Fowler," 
 taking up again the thread of his discourse, 
 " he believed in the doctrine of free meat, an' 
 because he carried it out an' stole a shoat from 
 Alf Howlitt you sent Gabe to the peniten 
 tiary. But Alf Howlitt, he believes in the 
 doctrine of free turnpikes, an' because he eggs 
 you on to stealin' 'em you 're a-goin' to send 
 him to the Legislature, where he promises an' 
 pledges hisself to put in his time pulverizin' 
 the turnpikes an' the railroads an' Wall Street 
 and Lombud Street an' all them copperations. 
 The way you fellers is a-goin' to pulverize the 
 roads an' streets I reckon you mus' be caki- 
 latin' on takin' to flyin' machines."
 
 148 The Opponents 
 
 " Shanks's mare is good enough fer me," tes 
 tified Dunk Peabody. 
 
 " Ef you cain't borry somebody's mule," 
 qualified Uncle Jesse Craik. 
 
 " An' while you 're pulverizin' the coppera- 
 tions," Pap Maxey resumed, "what are you 
 a-goin' to do with yo' churches? Ev'y man 
 cain't have a church an' a preacher an' a orgin 
 all to hisself, so you all go in cahoots an' chip 
 in to put up a meetin'-house an' hire a preacher 
 some chippin' in blue chips an' some reds an' 
 some thes whites, accordin' to the parable of 
 the talents. So what 's yo' church yonder but 
 a copperation? Well, I reckon ef the ma 
 jority in heaven was to git possessed with yo' 
 idees they would n't wanter let you in at all, 
 because ev'y gallivested one of you didn't 
 carry on a church by hisself as a privit indi- 
 vidyul. When you goin' to blow up the Con- 
 way gate ? " 
 
 The crowd was laughing in good humor, 
 and some began moving toward the church 
 door. 
 
 " 'Raw fer Garrard and Howlitt ! " called 
 back Dunk Peabody. 
 
 " 'Raw fer Tunstall and Howlitt ! " promptly 
 followed the falsetto of Uncle Jesse Craik.
 
 A Horse-Block Symposium 149 
 
 " Come on in, Pap," Nelse Tigert suggested. 
 " Maybe the parson '11 exchange pulpits with 
 you." 
 
 " I s'pose you all are a-goin' to put the toll 
 you saved this mornin' at Sibley's Mill into 
 the conterrybution box ! " was Pap Maxey's 
 last word.
 
 XIII 
 
 "THE QUEENIN' OF IT" 
 
 A LITTLE later he drove over to Sibley's to 
 see the wounded Andy; and then coming 
 back he went on down the road to the Conway 
 gate. In those times of the turnpike ma 
 rauders in Kentucky scarcely a week passed 
 that the newspapers did not report gates cut 
 down and toll-houses burned. The gate at 
 Sibley's Mill had been destroyed twice now, 
 and Pap Maxey knew that a few mornings 
 before a scrawl, signed " The Friends of the 
 People," had been found tacked to the door of 
 the Conway toll-house, directing that no more 
 toll be collected, on pain of being " blowed 
 sky-high." 
 
 The Conway gate was the pride of its 
 keeper, Nathan Conway. Forty years before, 
 when the road was surveyed and a gate located 
 near Nathan's cottage, he had applied for the 
 post of keeper, and in accordance with his 
 wishes the company had placed the gate in
 
 <c 
 
 The Queenin' of It " 151 
 
 front of Nathan's yard, on the edge of which it 
 built the cabin used as the toll-house. Here it 
 was the pleasure of Nathan to spend most of 
 his time. He was an autocrat in his sphere, 
 and, no less than others in higher spheres, he 
 liked autocracy. Nothing in his narrow experi 
 ence had ever given him such opportunity for 
 self-assertion. A wave of his hand, and the 
 traveller had permission to pass ; a twist of his 
 wrist, and the gate barred all transgression of 
 his will. He was a stickler for the strict ob 
 servance of the rules of the company, but it 
 was a question if he was not secretly more 
 pleased with their attempted infraction, for 
 that gave him a chance to demonstrate his 
 authority. His family a wife and two chil 
 dren understood and respected his hobby. 
 His daughter, Lide, who kept the cottage ob 
 scured from the toll-house and the road behind 
 roses, wistaria, and morning-glories, trained the 
 vines also over the porch of the toll-house, 
 and saw to it that there was ever within easy 
 reach on that porch a cedar bucket of cold 
 spring-water and a shining dipper, a feature 
 of " the Conway gate " which spread its fame 
 from one end of the road to the other, and 
 which more than anything else reconciled
 
 152 The Opponents 
 
 Nathan Convvay to the existence of the bicy 
 clists. For the bicyclists not being required 
 to pay toll, and not being therefore subject to 
 Nathan's official authority, had been at first 
 offensive innovations in his sight, and he had 
 raised his voice, in political discussion with 
 Dunk Peabody, Uncle Jesse Craik, and others 
 of his fellow-countrymen, in favor of passing a 
 law at Frankfort abolishing bicycles, along with 
 the Money Power, trusts, and other evils of the 
 age. But when the bicyclists discovered that 
 bucket and dipper on the porch and revelled 
 as only bicyclists can over such a discovery, 
 and glorified his spring, and extolled his kind 
 ness, and stocked him with cigars and tobacco 
 as tokens of their appreciation, Nathan's atti 
 tude toward them underwent a change, and 
 eventually it pleased him almost as much to see 
 the approach of a bicycle as it did to see a 
 traveller try to evade or defy the rules of the 
 company. 
 
 The few acres that he owned were cultivated 
 by his young son, Dave, and these, with his 
 official income, sufficed for his simple wants. 
 This summer, after years of saving, he had 
 got enough together to make his long-planned 
 visit to his brother in Texas. Dave, as a rare
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 153 
 
 treat, had been allowed to accompany him 
 as far as Louisville, and for the present Lide 
 Conway was in full charge of the gate. 
 
 She came out of the cottage, this Sunday 
 morning, through the toll-house, to the little 
 porch, a wholesome-looking girl, clean as to the 
 calico dress she wore, clean as to the white 
 petticoat whose edge showed as she caught up 
 her skirt crossing the yard. There were pink 
 roses at her waist and under the rich tan of her 
 cheeks, and the sun sifted down through the 
 morning-glory vines shading the porch and 
 sought its own in her eyes and hair. 
 
 " Good-mornin', Pap Maxey," she greeted 
 the old man, who had pulled up the yellow 
 horse in front of the toll-house. " I was goin' 
 to send for you to-day. You must come in to 
 dinner. Ma told me I must make you. We 're 
 all by ourselves." 
 
 " Much obleeged, much obleeged, Lide, but 
 I mus' be gittin' along. I thes drove by to see 
 how you comin' on." 
 
 " Everything 's about as usual, only another 
 warnin' was left last night." 
 
 " Toe-be-sho, toe-be-sho ! " 
 
 She took from her bosom a paper and handed 
 it to him.
 
 1 54 The Opponents 
 
 " I found it on the do' this mornin', the same 
 place where the other was." 
 
 He adjusted his spectacles and scanned it 
 closely. " Ken you make it out?" he asked, 
 returning it to her. " My schoolin' did n't 
 pervide fer no sich gallivested writin' as 
 that." 
 
 " It says : ' Last Warnin'. You are hereby 
 notified not to collect no mo' toll, or the Con- 
 way gate will go to meet the one at Sibley's 
 Mill. We warned you once next time we 
 will act. We do not act on Sunday which we 
 remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, but 
 we will be ready for business Monday. Take 
 due notice. The Friends of the People' " 
 
 "Yi, yi!" Pap Maxey laughed, "an" the 
 rapscallions means it." 
 
 " It 's a shame ! " the girl said with kindling 
 eyes. " Oh, I wish I was a man ! " 
 
 " But you ain't, Lide, an' I '11 come over an' 
 sleep in the toll-house to-night. They won't 
 come to-night, though. That "s honis, what 
 they say about Sunday. I know them scamps. 
 But I reckon you an' yo' ma '11 feel easier with 
 a man on the premises." 
 
 " I ain't afraid, but I know ma '11 be glad if 
 you come."
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 155 
 
 " I '11 hunt up Vance " Vance was the 
 president of the turnpike company " an' 
 make him go befo' Judge Gilbert, at Yardley, 
 to-morrer, an' swear out guards fer the gate. 
 Then the Conway gate will be as ready fer 
 business Monday as 'the Friends of the 
 People"ll be." 
 
 The next day, about noon, Pap Maxey, who 
 had started to the railway station with the 
 intention of going to Yardley, the county seat, 
 to have Vance apply to the County Judge for 
 guards, returned to the Conway gate, with the 
 explanation that, owing to his horse's " galli- 
 vested laziness," he had missed the train, and 
 there being no other until late in the afternoon, 
 there would be little probability of his securing 
 the guards before morning. 
 
 " But ef the raiders come to-night, Lide, you 
 let 'em cut down the gate," he advised. " Don't 
 you make no objection, an' they won't bother 
 you ner the house." 
 
 " But why can't I have some guards without 
 sendin' all the way to Judge Gilbert?" the 
 girl suggested. 
 
 " So you mout, Lide, but not accordin' to 
 the law made and pervided. An' the p'int is, 
 you don't know who to git. You don't know
 
 i 56 The Opponents 
 
 who b'longs to the raiders 'roun' here now an' 
 who don't specially who don't." 
 
 " I thought maybe it would n't make so 
 mighty much difference, you know," Lide ven 
 tured, with a little more color, " whether they 
 belonged to the raiders or not, if I asked them 
 as a particular favor to me." 
 
 Pap Maxey's face wrinkled till his eyes shut 
 with his shrill little laugh. 
 
 " Well, now, maybe it would n't," he admitted. 
 " I had n't thought of that p'int I reckon some 
 folks would swim the river ef you ast 'em, Lide, 
 raiders er no raiders. I mind me, now, there 's 
 Ike Pritchett an' Rufe Wright, toe-be-sho." 
 
 " An' there 's Nelse Tigert," she added. " I 
 reckon he 'd come." 
 
 " An' Nelse Tigert," agreed Pap, his eyes 
 twinkling. " You git Ike an' Rufe an' Nelse to 
 watch the gate fer you to-night, an' there won't 
 be no raidin' of it, I '11 go you ! An' all you 
 gotter do is to crook yo' finger at them three, 
 Lide, you raskil ! " his laugh even causing the 
 sleepy horse to prick up his ears. 
 
 "You go 'long with you, Pap Maxey!" 
 Lide commanded, her eyes narrowing and her 
 cheeks dimpling with the smile she only par 
 tially succeeded in repressing.
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 1 57 
 
 That afternoon she wrote three notes and 
 sent them off by a negro boy. Ike Pritchett, 
 Rufe Wright, and Nelse Tigert were regarded 
 as the chattels of Lide Conway. They had all 
 been " sparkin' " her for some time ; Rufe and 
 Nelse for three or four years and Ike more than 
 half as long. It was generally agreed that Lide 
 could get any one of the three whenever she 
 " said the word ; " that if she had made up her 
 mind to " have " any of them, none of them 
 knew it; and that she was holding all three 
 " on the string," to suit her pleasure and con 
 venience. They were all tractable subjects, 
 except, perhaps, Nelse Tigert. Nelse had 
 " asked " her as many times, no doubt, as either 
 of the others had, and had been as devoted, 
 but he was less patient with what he called 
 Lide's " queenin' of it." He had even told her 
 outright that she ought to make her choice 
 of them or " boost the whole bunch." This 
 being " bunched " impartially with the others 
 was one of the things that seemed to chafe 
 him. Rufe Wright did not disturb him much, 
 except to get in his way. Rufe was a harm 
 less sort of fellow, whom Nelse rather liked, 
 and whom he did not seriously regard as his 
 rival. Perhaps he did not seriously so regard
 
 158 The Opponents 
 
 Ike Pritchett ; but he had a contempt for Ike, 
 and did not deem him worthy of so much as 
 Lide's notice. He had too good an opinion of 
 her to think that she would ever marry Ike 
 Pritchett, but it "riled" him to see Ike ad 
 mitted to her friendship and, apparently, to 
 equal favor with Rufe Wright and Nelsc 
 Tigert. 
 
 He was particularly displeased with Lide's 
 latest bit of " queenin' of it." In the early part 
 of the preceding week he had ridden up to the 
 gate and asked Lide if he might " come to see " 
 her Thursday night. 
 
 " Come Friday night or Wednesday night," 
 she had said. " Ike 's comin' Thursday night." 
 
 " Seems like Ike an' me 's always wantin' the 
 same nights," he had replied. 
 
 "An* you an' him are always put out with 
 each other an' actin' disagreeable about it. So 
 I Ve turned over a new leaf. I 'm goin" to give 
 you all one night a week apiece. Ike says he '11 
 take Thursday night, an' you can have yo* 
 choice of the others. Rufe will be satisfied 
 with any night." 
 
 " Well, I be dadbur well, you do beat the 
 Queen o' Sheby ! " was Nelse's dazed com 
 ment, while Lide laughed softly in a " Giant
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 1 59 
 
 of Battles" rose into which she was dipping 
 her face. 
 
 " Scuse me!" Nelse said, with his second 
 breath. " I 'm a thousan' times obleeged to 
 you, but you c'n give my night to Ike Pritchett 
 too." He swept the horizon with his hat as he 
 bowed to her, and dug his heels into his horse's 
 sides. 
 
 " Remember," Lide called to him as he gal 
 loped away, her laugh growing clearer in her 
 intention that it should overtake him " re 
 member, any night but Thursday. An' tele 
 graph me which one you decide on." 
 
 Lide's three notes were brief, and similar in 
 everything except the addresses; Ike, Rufe, 
 and Nelse each being merely informed that 
 she would be at home that night, with the inti 
 mation that she would be pleased to see him. 
 
 "Did you find them all?" she asked the 
 boy, on his return. 
 
 " Yassum." 
 
 "It was all right, was it?" 
 
 " Mr. Ike en Mr. Rufe say dey sholy gwine 
 come, but Mr. Nelse, he say please scuse him, 
 caze he done got an'er in-ingagemunt." 
 
 Such a thing had never happened before. 
 
 Rufe came at dusk, and Ike not much later.
 
 1 60 The Opponents 
 
 Each seemed surprised to see the other, each 
 having assumed himself especially favored by 
 his invitation. Lide made no explanation for 
 some time, sitting between the two and appear- 
 ing not to notice their discomfort, though she 
 was keenly and approvingly conscious of it. 
 
 Finally Rufe slowly rose and flapping his 
 hat dejectedly against his thigh, remarked that 
 he reckoned he 'd be movin' on. 
 
 Lide told him not to be in such a hurry, and 
 then added that the raiders had made threats 
 to destroy the gate, and that Pap Maxey had 
 suggested that she ask Rufe and Ike to come 
 over and help her take care of things that 
 night 
 
 Rufe's lassitude gave way to a look of pleased 
 and childlike animation. He sat down imme 
 diately, and all constraint between him and Ike 
 Pritchett at once vanished. They had some 
 thing to think of now except the same girl. 
 There was even before them a possibility of 
 fighting; and Rufe and Ike were both more 
 natural and rational and cheerful when fighting 
 than when courting. 
 
 Soon Rufe took out his pistol and inspected 
 it fondly; and Ike followed his example, re 
 marking to Lide:
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 1 6 1 
 
 " Ef you 'd a-told me afo'hand I 'd 'a' brung 
 my rifle along." 
 
 They were sitting on the little porch of the 
 toll-house. 
 
 "You all take them pistols inside an' lay 
 them on the table," Lide ordered. "There 
 would n't be no accountin' for what you two 
 would do, with them pistols in yo' pockets. 
 I'll tell you when to use them, if the time 
 comes." 
 
 There were strenuous, even indignant, pro 
 tests against this, and her two subjects were 
 nearer open rebellion than they had ever been 
 before. But Lide had her way. 
 
 They sat and talked of the raiders and their 
 doings until the moon came up through the 
 trees, and the air from the yard grew sweet 
 from the dew-distilled fragrance of Lide's 
 flowers. It was nearly twelve o'clock when 
 Rufe suggested that Lide go to the cottage 
 and leave him and Ike to look after the gate. 
 
 " Hush," she answered intently. " I believe 
 I hear horses." 
 
 She was not mistaken. In a few seconds the 
 hoof-beats of several horses were faintly though 
 distinctly audible down the turnpike. 
 
 Then the sound suddenly ceased.
 
 1 62 The Opponents 
 
 "They've all pulled up," said Rufe, "er 
 they 've turned off to the side, where there 
 ain't no rock." 
 
 "An* there ain't no dirt road along there, 
 nuther," supplemented Ike; "mus" be ridin' 
 on the grass to keep f 'om makin' any noise." 
 
 For a little the silence was unbroken ; then 
 Rufe spoke : 
 
 "That's it! Don't you hear the chug! 
 chug! of the horses on the grass?" 
 
 The moon was shining, though dimly, 
 through a thin film of clouds. 
 
 " I see them ! " exclaimed Lide, her eyes 
 straining down the pale limestone line of the 
 road. 
 
 About a hundred yards from the gate there 
 was a clump of trees on one side of the pike, 
 which was thus partially obscured at that point, 
 but beyond, in the moonlight, a dark shadow 
 was approaching; and a moment more it 
 was merged in the larger shadow of the trees. 
 
 "They're goin' to hitch their horses there 
 an' do the rest on foot," hazarded Rufe. 
 
 He seemed to have guessed right. It was 
 not long before the raiders reappeared, now 
 without their horses, and numbering apparently 
 ten or fifteen. They came straight forward
 
 " The Queenin' of It " 163 
 
 until they had covered about half the distance 
 between the trees and the gate, when they 
 abruptly halted and drew together in a bunch. 
 
 " I reckon they see us now an' are holdin' a 
 confab," observed Rufe. 
 
 It was fully a minute before it ended. Then 
 a voice was heard to say decisively : " I '11 go 
 myself an' see how the land lays, an' not a 
 man comes another step till I give the word." 
 Immediately one of the party left it and walked 
 swiftly toward the gate. 
 
 " Why," gasped Rufe, in amazement, " that 
 feller's voice sounded like " 
 
 " It is ! it is ! Oh, the creature ! " was Lide's 
 low cry of wrath and contempt. 
 
 " The pistols ! " Ike exclaimed, and he and 
 Rufe rushed from the porch into the house to 
 secure them. 
 
 But Nelse Tigert was too quick for them. 
 He sprang forward, and before Lide knew 
 what was his purpose he, laughing, had lifted 
 her from the porch and was hurrying with her 
 in his arms across the yard between the toll 
 house and the Conway cottage. 
 
 " That wa' n't no place fer you, Lide," he 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, you coward ! " and she, surprised and
 
 164 The Opponents 
 
 powerless, could only strike him in the face 
 with her hand. 
 
 "Do that ag'in," he threatened, "an' I'll 
 kiss you." 
 
 Rufe and Ike had almost immediately run 
 from the toll-house with drawn revolvers, but 
 with Lide in the arms of the man they wished 
 to shoot, revolvers were useless. 
 
 " I '11 be back, boys, soon 's I escote Miss 
 Lide home," Nelse had laughed to them over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 He put her down at the door of the cottage. 
 
 " You better go in an' stay with yo' ma," 
 he advised ; " I '11 see that they ain't no damage 
 done 'cept thes to chop down the gate pole." 
 
 Lide did not deign to answer him. 
 
 Rufe and Ike rushed up, and Nelse turned 
 to face them. 
 
 " Hold on, you all," he said ; " we don't 
 want no difficulty in Miz Conway's yard. I 
 reckon she 's asleep, anyhow. You c'n see 
 me outside, ef you wanter." 
 
 Just then there was the ring of axes at the 
 toll-gate. 
 
 "You hurry back to the gate, Rufe," Ike 
 urged; "I'll settle with Nelse Tigers" 
 
 " Stop, both of you ! " Lide ordered, run-
 
 The Queenin' of It " 165 
 
 ning up to her two lieutenants. " It's too late 
 to do any good now, an' there ain't no use of 
 yo' gettin' hurt for nothin'." 
 
 Ike took a determined step toward Nelse, 
 but Lide was between them, and was to be 
 obeyed. 
 
 " Ike Pritchett," she cried, " if you an' Rufe 
 Wright don't do exactly as I tell you, I '11 
 never speak to either of you again as long as 
 I live ! " 
 
 " She 's right, boys," Nelse Tigert volun 
 teered. " No use yo' cuttin' up now. The 
 gate 's down by this time, an' you got my word 
 they shain't do no other damage. Ef you 
 wanter light into us you c'n do it ; but what '11 
 you make buckin' up ag'in' a crowd that 's six 
 or seven to yo' one ? As fer me, when you all 
 wanter see me you know mighty well it 's 
 always easy to find me." 
 
 He turned and walked away, toward the toll- 
 gate. Ike, sullen and black, was about to fol 
 low, but was restrained by a look from Lide. 
 Rufe was slowly gouging a hole in the turf with 
 his boot, his eyes intent on his work. 
 
 " By gum ! " he muttered, " I don't see what 
 was the use o' yo' sendin' fer us ef you wa'n't 
 a-goin' to let us have no fun."
 
 1 66 The Opponents 
 
 The raiders had now left the gate and dis 
 appeared down the pike. When Lide, with 
 her unhappy escorts, went to see what ruin 
 had been wrought, she found that the toll 
 house had been undisturbed, but that the 
 gate-pole had been cut down and had been 
 obligingly chopped up into lengths suitable 
 for stove-wood.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF THE QUEEN OF SHEBA'S 
 SUPERIOR 
 
 ALTHOUGH it was not later than seven o'clock 
 the next morning when Nelse Tigert rode up 
 to the Con way gate, he found another pole 
 across the road. 
 
 There was a smile on his face as he stopped 
 his horse and waited for Lide to let him pass ; 
 the smile broadened as he noted that she came 
 out of the toll-house without appearing even to 
 see him, and that, contrary to her custom in 
 taking toll, she made no motion to raise the 
 pole until she had his money in her hand. 
 
 " Hear Pap Maxey has gone to Judge Gil 
 bert fer guards," he said propitiatingly as he 
 rode through. 
 
 She simply turned her stony face further 
 away and lowered the pole behind him. 
 
 " That 's a good move," he tried again, " ef 
 he gits the right men; an' I reckon I better 
 give him a tip."
 
 1 68 The Opponents 
 
 She fastened the gate and walked back into 
 the house, without any indication that she had 
 seen or heard him. 
 
 When Pap Maxey returned to the Conway 
 gate that afternoon, his eyes were dancing and 
 his jaws were working so much more than nor 
 mally that Lide knew, the instant she saw him, 
 that he was highly pleased with the result of 
 his journey to Yardley. 
 
 " Well, Lide," he said, " I reckon we '11 
 manage fer a while now. The judge did n't 
 wanter give us no guards much folks thinks 
 he 'd like to take sides with the raiders hisself, 
 bein' as he 's a candidate fer re-election an' 
 he would n't give us as many guards as we ast 
 fer, but he allowed us fo' fer this gate an' 
 Sibley's Mill together, an' long 's we got good 
 men I reckon they '11 do. Nelse Tigert, he says 
 they 're all right, an' Nelse knows." 
 
 " Nelse Tigert ! " the girl protested. " Why, 
 don't you know that it was Nelse Tigert that 
 led the raiders last night? " 
 
 " I reckon I know as much about Nelse 
 Tigert as the nex' man. When he says he '11 
 do a thing he '11 do it ; an' he says he '11 be 
 'sponsible this gate won't be raided while he 's 
 in charge."
 
 The Queen of Sheba's Superior 1 69 
 
 " Nelse Tigert in charge of this gate ! " as 
 tonished and indignant. 
 
 " Toe-be-sho ! Ef he 's on our side now, 
 who keers ef he was on t' other side las' night ? 
 So much the better ef he was he knows 
 the ropes. We done fixed it all up. We got 
 Nelse 'p'inted one of the guards, an' he 's 
 comin' here, while the other three '11 go to 
 Sibley's Mill. Nelse said he reckoned you 
 was not hankerin' fer his comp'ny, but you 
 would n't hafter see much of him, an' he 
 would n't be much wuss'n havin' strange guards 
 hangin' 'roun'. Anyhow, we cakilated he 
 could take keer of the gate best, without 
 botherin' about any of the strangers ; so he '11 
 be on hand to-night." 
 
 Lide's head was high in the air now, but she 
 did not condescend to argue the point. 
 
 When Nelse arrived later and, standing his 
 gun on the porch, against the wall of the 
 toll-house, sat down on the steps near, Lide 
 was at the cottage with her mother ; nor did 
 she appear until an hour afterward, when she 
 came out to collect toll from some one. Nelse 
 was still sitting on the steps, but she would 
 not look at him. 
 
 " You neenter trouble about comin' to take
 
 170 The Opponents 
 
 toll," he said, as she started back. " Ic'n thes 
 as well 'ten' to that fer you as not." 
 
 " I despise you, Nelse Tigert ! " she flung at 
 him, as she walked away and returned to the 
 cottage, which she did not leave again that 
 night. 
 
 Next morning Nelse waited until he saw 
 her standing in the doorway of the cottage, 
 when he placed the money he had collected on 
 the table in the toll-house and left for the day. 
 
 When he returned to take up his sentry 
 again in the evening, she was sitting in the 
 entrance of the toll-house, sewing. Nelse 
 stood his gun against the wall, saw that she 
 did not look up from her work, and went to 
 his old seat on the steps. He sat there for 
 several minutes, fanning himself with his hat, 
 and then said, without glancing toward her : 
 
 " One reason I never come the other night, 
 when you sent me that note, was because I 
 knowed I could do you a heap mo' good by 
 goin' with the raiders." 
 
 She gave no sign that she had heard him, 
 and he spoke no further. 
 
 Soon she rose and went to the cottage for 
 the night. 
 
 The following evening she was again sewing
 
 The Queen of Sheba's Superior 171 
 
 in the doorway of the toll-house when he came 
 on duty, and after he had been silently sitting 
 on the steps for some time he said, as if in 
 continuation of his words the evening before : 
 
 " I picked you up an' toted you to the house 
 because I did n't know what minute them fools 
 might begin carryin' on an' shootin'." 
 
 She made no reply. He went on fanning 
 himself, and she went on sewing. Then, after 
 a little, it being Thursday and Ike Pritchett's 
 night, that young man arrived, and Lide took 
 him over to the cottage. 
 
 Friday evening, as Nelse placed his gun 
 against the wall, he looked into the doorway of 
 the toll-house, as if he expected to see the 
 girl sitting there again, but she was not visible. 
 
 Just then Dunk Peabody rode up, and Nelse 
 went forward to take his toll. 
 
 " Say, you ain't goner charge me nothin', 
 are you, Nelse Tigert ? " Dunk expostulated. 
 
 Nelse answered that he had no authority to 
 make any exception in Dunk's favor. 
 
 " But this ain't my mule, nohow," Dunk 
 argued. "It's Uncle Jesse Craik's: charge it 
 to Uncle Jesse." 
 
 Nelse insisted on the cash. 
 
 " Look-a-here, Nelse Tigert," Dunk de-
 
 172 The Opponents 
 
 murred, as he handed over the money, " I be 
 dodgasted ef you ain't the las' man I ever ex 
 pected to see takin' sides with the grastin' pluty- 
 crats. An' I tell you, man to man, you better 
 look sharp, too ! The boys don't know what 
 to make o' yo' desertin' 'em 'twixt sun-up an' 
 sun-down, an' they got it in fer you ! " 
 
 " You tell the boys," Nelse replied with 
 unwonted dignity, " that bein' a privit citizen 
 is one thing an' bein' a awficer of the law is 
 another ; an' as long as I am a awficer of the 
 law, sent here by the Judge of the County Cote 
 to carry out the law an' guard this gate, I 'm 
 a-goin' to do it while Ic'n draw a bead er pull 
 a trigger." 
 
 " Well, Nelse Tigert," Dunk called back as 
 he rode on, " I bet you that 's the las' cent o' 
 my money the Conway gate ever gits. You 
 put that in yo' gun an' shoot it." 
 
 " Is Uncle Jesse goin' to lend you the toll 
 as well as the mule?" Nelse retorted. 
 
 He did not see Lide until about nine o'clock 
 that night. Then she came into the toll-house 
 and set a tray on the table. 
 
 " Ma thought," she said in a low, uncompro 
 mising voice, "you might need a snack durin' 
 the night."
 
 The Queen of Sheba's Superior 173 
 
 "I I 'm much obleeged to you," Nelse 
 stammered ; " I - ' But she went out and 
 across the yard to the cottage without waiting 
 to hear what he would have added when he 
 recovered control of his tongue. 
 
 Saturday night was the one Rufe Wright had 
 chosen for his own ; and Lide and he sat on 
 the porch of the cottage, while Nelse sat on the 
 porch of the toll-house. 
 
 Mrs. Conway brought him his lunch that 
 night. 
 
 Lide brought it Sunday night; and before 
 she could set it down and leave, Nelse had again 
 spoken. 
 
 " You never s'posed I ever meant to harm^' 
 gate ? " he said. " Them fools was thes deter 
 mined to play the mischief an' burn down the 
 whole toll-house, an' I dunno what all, but I 
 thought ef I went with 'em I could take the lead 
 an' hold 'em down from doin' anything but thes 
 cuttin' down the pole, 'thout nobody bein' hurt. 
 That 'sail." 
 
 She did not answer, but adjusted the napkin 
 over his lunch and went back to the cottage. 
 
 Monday night Nelse was a little later than 
 usual, and it was dark when he reached the gate. 
 
 This time Lide Conway was standing out on
 
 1/4 The Opponents 
 
 the porch of the toll-house, looking anxiously 
 down the road. When she saw Nelse she gave 
 a little exclamation of relief and hurried to meet 
 him. 
 
 " O Nelse ! " she cried, " look what I found 
 stuck on the do' to-night." 
 
 She held out a sheet of paper and they went 
 inside, to the lamp. 
 
 But Nelse, standing by the table, seemed to 
 have no thought of the paper in his hand. His 
 breathing was deep, his face aglow, his glad, 
 puzzled eyes fixed helplessly on the metamor 
 phosis of Lide. 
 
 " Read it, Nelse, quick ! " she urged. " It- 
 it is terrible ! " 
 
 Nelse's face relaxed into a great smile, which 
 seemed to settle there forever, and he finally 
 found voice as he reluctantly withdrew his eyes 
 from the girl to the paper. 
 
 " What? This here thing? " he said stupidly. 
 
 " Hurry, Nelse ; read it ! " 
 
 He unfolded the paper and held it to the 
 light: 
 
 " To Nelse Tigert Trater You leave the Con- 
 way gate at once, or we will hang you to the rafters 
 before we burn down the house. 
 
 " The Friends of the People."
 
 The Queen of Sheba's Superior 175 
 
 Nelse laughed absently as he dropped the 
 sheet on the table ; but Lide caught his arm 
 quickly. 
 
 " O Nelse," she pleaded, " leave right away, 
 please ! You don't know when they will 
 come ! " 
 
 " Shucks, Lide ! " he scoffed in his happiness ; 
 " don't you mind what them fellers say. It 's a 
 cold bluff. They wanter bluff me off the place 
 so they c'n chop you some mo' stove-wood. 
 I know that gang. They ain't out fer no shootin' 
 match with with no plumb fool that they 
 know ken shoot, an' will shoot, an' shoot trou 
 blesome ruther 'n step up an' be hanged. 
 There 's a wasps' nest up there among them 
 rafters, anyhow, an' I thes would n't choose to 
 be hanged so clost to no wasps' nest. 'Sides, 
 I would n't leave the Conway gate now, wasps' 
 nest er no wasps' nest, with a hangin' th'owed 
 in ! " 
 
 " But please, Nelse, do it for for me." 
 
 " Why, Lide " and he said it as if he meant 
 it, "I could whoop all the raiders in Ken 
 tucky to-night ! " 
 
 He led her out to his old seat on the porch, 
 and they talked it over there for nearly an hour, 
 he finally promising magnanimously, " thes to
 
 ij6 The Opponents 
 
 satisfy you, Lide," that he would call on one 
 of the guards at " Sibley's Mill to reinforce 
 him, if young Dave Conway did not get home 
 next day. Then Lide went to the cottage, and 
 came back with Dave's rifle, insisting that she 
 intended to take f)ave's place that night, and 
 Nelse was standing on the porch before her, 
 roaring with laughter and threatening that if 
 she did not return to the cottage and go to sleep 
 he would " bodaciously tote " her there, as he 
 had done once before, when his laughter 
 abruptly ceased at the sudden and near sound 
 of a horse galloping away from them, up the 
 pike. 
 
 Lide and Nelse looked at each other com- 
 prehendingly. No one had ridden through the 
 gate. 
 
 " Some loafer sky-larkin' roun'," Nelse said 
 reassuringly. 
 
 " It was somebody spyin' on the gate, to find 
 out if you were here," Lide answered with 
 quickened breath. 
 
 " Well, he found out, an' I reckon what he 
 found out," replied Nelse confidently, " will 
 satisfy him fer this night. Now, you run on 
 back to the house, my my girl, ef you don't 
 
 wanter make me lose my job. The fact is, 
 
 f
 
 The Queen of Sheba's Superior 1 77 
 
 I 've been so took up an' turned 'roun' with you 
 tonight that I plumb forgot I was a awficer 
 of the law, an' that sneak might 'a' touched a 
 match to the toll-house 'thout my layin' eyes 
 on him."
 
 XV 
 
 SOME RAIDERS AND A THEORY 
 
 " I HEAR somebody comin' now," said Lide, 
 looking alertly up the turnpike. 
 
 "Oh, that ain't them," Nelse assured her; 
 " they won't come on wheels." 
 
 It was Morgan Tunstall and his party, driving 
 home from the railway station, on their return 
 from Mammoth Cave. Tunstall, in his phae 
 ton, with Mrs. Letcher, Kate Cockerill, and 
 Hugh Letcher, passed through the gate with 
 out stopping. A few seconds later a second 
 carriage followed, containing Margaret Helm, 
 Florence Letcher, Nixon, and Sidney Garrard. 
 Garrard pulled up the horses at the gate, and 
 the party spoke to Lide cordially, Florence 
 and Margaret leaning out and shaking her 
 hand in unaffected admiration. Lide, since her 
 adventure in attempting to defend the gate the 
 previous week, was regarded as something of a 
 heroine.
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 179 
 
 " No more attacks on the gate since we 
 left?" inquired Garrard. 
 
 " No, sir," Lide answered ; " Mr. Tigert has 
 been guarding it every night." 
 
 " Ah? Well, that 's a good idea. I shouldn't 
 like to attack a gate that Nelse was guarding." 
 
 " By order of Judge Gilbert," explained 
 Nelse, standing a little straighten 
 
 " But what are you doing with that gun, 
 Miss Lide?" Garrard asked. 
 
 "This? Oh, this is Dave's. I just brought 
 it over from the house." 
 
 " She 's got a notion the raiders are comin* 
 ag'in," Nelse laughed softly, " an' she ain't 
 good an' certain that Ic'n manage them by 
 myself." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Garrard ! " Lide cried impulsively, 
 stepping nearer, " you read it an' see if you 
 don't think Nelse ought n't to pay some at 
 tention to it," handing him the warning she 
 had found stuck on the door earlier in the 
 evening. 
 
 Garrard read it slowly two or three times. 
 
 "Where did you get it?" he asked lightly, 
 as he handed it back. 
 
 Lide explained. 
 
 " Well, I should n't worry about it at all,"
 
 1 80 The Opponents 
 
 he said, as if it were not worth further con 
 sideration. 
 
 He drove on; but fifteen minutes later, 
 when he had said good-night to Margaret and 
 Florence at Letcher Tavern, he called to Hugh, 
 who was smoking outside, Tunstall having left 
 Mrs. Letcher and Hugh at the Tavern and 
 gone on with Kate Cockerill. 
 
 " I 'm afraid there may be trouble again at 
 the Conway gate to-night," Garrard declared, 
 as Hugh came out and lifted one foot to the 
 wheel hub. 
 
 "What makes you think so? " 
 
 " A rather ugly warning left at the gate to 
 night, together with the fact that since reading 
 it I have recalled several circumstances that 
 look a little suspicious. There was that fellow 
 we met on the other side of the Conway gate 
 he was certainly going somewhere and for some 
 purpose. At any rate, he was going in the 
 direction of Windrow's Bend. There was the 
 neigh of a horse in the bushes as we passed 
 Windrow's Bend, further back, before we met 
 this fellow. Now, what business have horses 
 in Windrow's Bend at this time of night? We 
 have either passed or met half a dozen men 
 to-night all of whom were going toward Wind-
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 181 
 
 row's Bend, and all of whom edged away from 
 us on the road. Since I have been waiting 
 here I heard two more gallop along the pike 
 beyond Burnham's yonder and turn off into 
 Burnham's lane. It may be only a coinci 
 dence, but Burnham's lane is the only route 
 they can take from here to reach Windrow's 
 Bend conveniently without going through the 
 Conway gate. Besides, we know the state of 
 feeling now against the toll-gates." 
 
 " Nelse Tigert is still on guard at the Con- 
 way gate, isn't he? " Hugh asked. 
 
 " Yes. That 's one reason why an attack on 
 the gate to-night would be a much more seri 
 ous matter than the one last week was. Nelse, 
 as well as some of the raiders, would be pretty 
 sure to fare roughly." 
 
 " Well, do you propose anything?" 
 
 " Yes. I shall stop awhile with Nelse as I 
 go back. If you like you and Nix might join 
 us. We four should make a pretty formidable 
 garrison for the Conway gate." 
 
 "Now, Sid," Nixon protested, "I'll sit up 
 with Nelse, but you drive on home. You 
 are n't nominated yet, and you 're a fool to go 
 out of your way to set all this anti-toll-gate 
 crowd against you."
 
 1 82 The Opponents 
 
 " Right you are, Nix," Hugh exclaimed. 
 " You and I can keep Nelse company to-night. 
 There 's no use of Sid getting mixed up in this 
 business. It would beat him, sure." 
 
 "You go to the house," Garrard enjoined 
 him, " and get a couple of guns, without letting 
 any of the family see you. We can talk over 
 the other point on the way." 
 
 Hugh got the guns, and as the three drove 
 back to the Conway gate he and Nixon re 
 newed their protestations against Garrard's 
 taking any unnecessary risk of weakening him 
 self in his race for Congress by helping Nelse 
 Tigert guard the gate. 
 
 "You admit that these raiders and their 
 sympathizers are strong and unreasonable in 
 this county," Hugh urged, " and that to excite 
 their hostility won't help you to win your race." 
 
 " I admit," Garrard replied ; " but Nelse 
 may be in a tight place to-night, and may need 
 us." 
 
 " I 'm afraid you '11 never make a politician, 
 Sid." 
 
 " Oh, well, as far as that is concerned, this 
 turnpike rioting is a matter of public interest, 
 and the voters have a right to know what I 
 think of it."
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 183 
 
 " But you can afford to wait till they ask 
 you what you think of it. There 's no occa 
 sion for your mixing up in it in this ruinous 
 manner. Nix and I are all the reinforcement 
 Nelse will need." 
 
 " But are n't you a politician yourself? " 
 " I 'm out of politics and intend to stay out." 
 " I could n't ask you and Nix to go where I 
 would n't go. Besides, three of us on Nelse's 
 staff will be more effective than two, if the 
 raiders should come. There will be less prob 
 ability that they will fight at all if they find the 
 gate strongly guarded. Nelse's conceit, his 
 reputation as a rifle shot, his recent association 
 with the raiders, and his desire to 'show off* 
 before his sweetheart have made him over 
 confident, yet I am pretty sure that Nelse's con 
 tempt for the raiders is not altogether unjust 
 to them. I have long been convinced that the 
 average mob, when not aroused to frenzy by 
 some unusually atrocious crime, has n't a sur 
 plus of courage, and that a determined resist 
 ance by even greatly inferior numbers will stop 
 it and put it to flight. I believe that three 
 fourths of the mobs that go around lynching 
 negroes and all of them that go around burn 
 ing toll-gates could be routed by a sheriff and
 
 1 84 The Opponents 
 
 two or three deputies who were men enough 
 to do their duty. The chief trouble is that 
 these law officers either sympathize with the 
 mob or are too cowardly to oppose it. They 
 do not seem to realize that a man, though 
 brave enough ordinarily, is usually more of a 
 coward than they are themselves when he is 
 taking part in the unlawful enterprise of a mob. 
 It is not often that he will run much real risk 
 of getting a bullet in his skin, to say nothing 
 of discovery. Nelse and two of us would no 
 doubt be ample to protect the Conway gate, 
 but Nelse and all of us would be as good as a 
 regiment." 
 
 He had his way. Nelse Tigert laughingly 
 scoffed at the possibility of his needing their 
 assistance, but he took the horses to the stable 
 cheerfully. 
 
 " There wa' n't no use of you all comin'," he 
 said ; " but I 'm glad you did come, anyhow. 
 It's powerful lonesome here 'long towards day. 
 Maybe wec'n have a little game of seven-up." 
 
 But there was no seven-up. Lide, happily 
 confident now of the safety of the gate and of 
 Nelse, had retired to the cottage, leaving Dave's 
 rifle at the toll-house " in case it might be 
 needed." The four men lounged on the porch
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 185 
 
 for an hour, when Nixon, removing his coat 
 and turning a chair down as a pillow, stretched 
 himself on the floor, with the request that he 
 be called if visitors should arrive. A little after 
 twelve o'clock Hugh yawned that he believed 
 he would follow Nix's example. 
 
 " Better wait a minute," suggested Garrard. 
 " Do you hear anything, Nelse ? " 
 
 It was very still. The moon, red with what 
 Nelse had interpreted as " rain before she 
 changes," was low in the west. The trees 
 seemed to have drawn the shadows of the 
 night about them and were motionless in sleep. 
 There was not even a lisp in the field of corn 
 across the road. The one sound that domi 
 nated the silence had the effect of only deep 
 ening it, the slumberous, soothing murmur 
 of the shoals in the little river a mile distant. 
 
 " Yes," Nelse answered ; " I hear Sanders' 
 Shoals, an' I don't know as I ever heerd 'em 
 from the Conway gate befo'." 
 
 " And / hear what sounds like a troop of 
 cavalry, up the road," Garrard declared. 
 
 Nelse bent forward intently for a second. 
 " By Hannah Maria ! " he exclaimed, " so do 
 I!" 
 
 He took up his gun, which had been stand 
 ing against the wall.
 
 i86 The Opponents 
 
 " I never would 'a' thought," he added, " that 
 you had better hearin' than me, Sid Garrard ! " 
 
 " Oh, Sid 's a politician, and he keeps his 
 ears to the ground," Hugh Letcher remarked. 
 
 " He does, does he?" Nelse studied Hugh's 
 countenance as if not quite sure that he under 
 stood thoroughly. " Well, ef he don't want to 
 hear things that would n't do him no good, I 'd 
 advise him not to be ketched here to-night. 
 Them 's voters hittin' the pike now, an' there 's 
 lots mo' of the same stripe in Luttroll County." 
 
 " Excellent advice, Nelse," Hugh replied ; 
 " too good to be thrown away on a man pre 
 destined always to do his best to elect the other 
 fellow. Get up there, Nix," kicking Nixon's 
 foot, " or you '11 miss the fun." 
 
 Nixon rolled over and raised up on his 
 elbow, growling: 
 
 " To the devil with you, Spud ! Don't want 
 any breakfast 'smorning." 
 
 The night-riders were drawing rapidly nearer. 
 The ring of the hoof-beats on the hard turn 
 pike was now so distinct that Nelse Tigert 
 claimed he could " come mighty clost to 
 countin' the lay-out There 's about twenty in it 
 not mo' than twenty-five nor less than fif 
 teen." Soon they were visible, their backs
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 187 
 
 against the sinking moon. As they swept for 
 ward along the white strip of the road, there was 
 a jubilant yell from a single throat, followed by 
 a gruff " Shut up ! " in a lower voice. The 
 troop galloped as near as sixty yards of the 
 toll-gate before they stopped, and as they drew 
 rein Nelse Tigert stepped out into the road in 
 front of the toll-house. 
 
 " I reckon you all better wait there tell you 're 
 invited to come any furder, boys," he called out 
 good-humoredly. 
 
 One of the masked raiders, holding up a 
 handkerchief tied to the muzzle of his gun, 
 trotted forward half the distance to the gate 
 and halted. 
 
 " Nelse Tigert," he shouted, " you know 
 what we 're here fer, an' I thes wanter tell you 
 that they ain't no use of havin' no foolin'. We 
 don't want no trouble, but we're a-goin' to 
 chop down that gate an' burn down that toll 
 house ; an' we 're a-goin' to do the square thing 
 to keep from havin' no trouble an' give you 
 a fair chance to throw up yo' job an' move 
 outer the way. We ain't disputin' yo' spunk, 
 but I reckon youc'n see we 're a few too many 
 fer you." 
 
 " Say, Shack," Nelse responded, " you ough-
 
 1 88 The Opponents 
 
 ter wear a muzzle along with yo 1 mask ef yo' 
 don't want yo' old friends to know you. But 
 I ain't throwin' up no jobs, Shack; an' right 
 now my job is to keep this gate from bein' 
 chopped down an' this toll-house from bein' 
 burned down. Is that all you wanted to say, 
 Shack?" 
 
 " I thes wanted to give you fair notice, 
 Nelse, to save onnecessary trouble ; an' fair 
 notice I done give you. Now, I ain't got but 
 one mo' thing to say. I 'm a-goin' back to the 
 boys yonder, an' we 're a-goin' to wait thes two 
 minutes by the watch fer you to ac' reasonable 
 an* step out o' the way. Then we're a-goin' 
 to chop down the gate an' burn down the 
 toll-house, trouble er no trouble." 
 
 The man with the flag of truce pulled his 
 horse around to ride back, but Nelse halted 
 him. 
 
 " Wait a minute, Shack. I ain't had my say 
 yit You give the boys up yonder my love 
 an' affection," raising his voice so that the 
 boys could hear him themselves, " an' tell ' em 
 as a particular favor to me I want 'em to take 
 due notice of that 'ere tree standin' on the side 
 of the road a little ways in front of 'em. It 's a 
 slippery-ellum tree, an' bein' as it is the only
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 189 
 
 tree between here an' them, they cain't mis 
 take it. Now I 'm a-goin' to stan' here behind 
 this red-oak tree I 'm free to say that con- 
 siderin' the number of you all I 'm a-goin' to 
 take to timber an' the fus one of you that 
 comes this side of that slippery-ellum, well, 
 I 'm a-goin' to do my level bes' to keep him 
 from a-comin' any furder; an' I'm livin' in 
 hopes that Ic'n stop a passel of you all be 
 tween here and the slippery-ellum. I reckon 
 you all know whether Ic'n shoot." 
 
 " All right, Nelse," answered Shack. " We 
 ain't honin' fer no ruckus, an' we 've done done 
 the fair thing to keep from havin' no ruckus; 
 but ef you mus' have it, you mus'. An' I 
 reckon other folks kin shoot some, too, Nelse." 
 
 Shack rode back to his command. There 
 was evidently a hurried and disorderly con 
 ference. There was a confusion of voices, 
 several of which could be understood at the 
 toll-gate : 
 
 "Then we won't give the fool no two 
 minutes ! " 
 
 " We better bushwhack him through the 
 corn-field ! " 
 
 " Or flank him through the yard ! " 
 
 "To hell with the slippery-ellum! I'm
 
 190 The Opponents 
 
 fer ridin' him straight down right over the 
 turnpike ! " 
 
 Garrard stepped from the shadow of the 
 porch to the moonlit road. 
 
 " Hugh," he said, " would n't it be well for 
 you and Nix to show yourselves for a second 
 out here by Nelse and his red-oak ? " 
 
 He walked up the turnpike about twenty 
 paces, that he might be within better speaking 
 distance of the raiders. 
 
 " Here, Sid," Nixon objected ; " no use your 
 acting smart now and getting too far away from 
 the red-oak." 
 
 " Boys," began Garrard, stopping on the road 
 and addressing the raiders, " wait a minute 
 where you are. I've a few words to say to 
 you." 
 
 " Why, he 's goin' to make a speech," com 
 mented Hugh. " The ruling passion strong in 
 death." 
 
 From the group of raiders came such 
 ejaculations as: 
 
 " I know that voice ! " 
 
 " What 's he doin' here?" 
 
 " Damned if 't ain't Sid Garrard ! " 
 
 "Yes," admitted the speaker, "it's Sid 
 Garrard. I 've come over with Hugh Letcher
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 191 
 
 and Bob Nixon to keep you and Nelse Tigert 
 out of trouble." 
 
 "Well," shouted the leader, Shack, riding 
 forward a few feet in front of the others, " you 
 an' Hugh Letcher an' Bob Nixon had better 
 go back to keep yo'selves outer trouble. An' 
 you better take Nelse 'long with you, I 
 reckon." 
 
 " Now, see here, boys," Garrard urged, 
 " you 'd better act reasonably about this mat 
 ter. You know very well that you have come 
 to do an unlawful deed ; that Nelse is an officer 
 of the law who is here to protect the toll-gate, 
 and that before you can do what you came to 
 do you will have to kill him, and you don't 
 believe you will be able to do that before he 
 kills some of you. Is the destruction of the 
 toll-gate worth what it will cost ? " 
 
 "Oh, come off ! This ain't no stump speakin' ! " 
 yelled one of the raiders. 
 
 " That 's yo' Sid Garrard ! " one was heard to 
 scoff at another. " Now maybe you still think 
 he 's fer the people, heh? " 
 
 " We never come here to debate, Mr. Gar 
 rard," Shack responded. " We come here fer 
 business, an' we 're a-goin' to 'ten' to business. 
 We ain't got nothin' ag'in' you an' Mr. Nixon
 
 192 The Opponents 
 
 an' Mr. Letcher, an' th' ain't no call fer you all 
 goin' outn yo' way to git in our way. So you 
 all better stan' aside an' not meddle in what 
 don't concern you. That's fair an' square 
 warnin'. An' that 's all there is to it." 
 
 " Not quite," answered Garrard. " We have 
 a warning to give from our side. There are 
 four of us, and we are well armed and pretty 
 well sheltered. We are determined that you 
 sha'n't destroy the gate without killing us, and 
 we don't believe you can do that. Now, I serve 
 notice on all of you that if you raise a hand 
 against this gate to-night I am going to do my 
 best to send every one of you to the peniten 
 tiary, and if you kill any of us to-night the 
 survivors will do their best to send you to the 
 gallows." 
 
 There were howls and jeers of indignation 
 and derision from the raiders. 
 
 " Let him have it now ! " cried one, as a rifle 
 was levelled at Garrard. 
 
 But Shack threw up his hand imperatively. 
 " Stop that ! " he ordered ; and as Nelse, 
 Hugh, and Nixon sprang toward Garrard, the 
 gun was lowered, and Shack snapped his fin 
 gers at Garrard, declaring: 
 
 "We don't care that fer yo' notices an'
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 193 
 
 warnin's. We 're a-goin' to 'ten' to this busi 
 ness when we git ready. We ain't got 
 nothin' ag'in' you an' Letcher an' Nixon that 
 is, not enough to hanker after shootin' you down 
 fer a old toll-gate. Besides, there 's another 
 way of gittin' even with you, Sid Garrard, an' 
 there '11 be a heap mo' fun in it than there 'd 
 be in thes a few minutes' shootin' match." 
 
 " How much did they pay you when you 
 sold out, Siddie?" a raider shouted. 
 
 Shack rejoined his gang, and Garrard and his 
 friends had started back to the toll-gate when 
 one of the masked men, thrashing the ribs of 
 a mule with his legs, galloped down the road 
 with such momentum that the slippery-elm was 
 passed a few feet before the animal could be 
 stopped and jerked back. 
 
 " Look out there, Nelse Tigert ! " the rider 
 of the mule cried hastily, crouching low over 
 the mule's neck. " We 're on our own side of 
 the slippery-ellum ! " 
 
 Then, as the laughter of Nelse and several 
 of the raiders ceased, the rider of the mule 
 raised himself in the saddle and in a surer voice 
 continued : 
 
 " I let you know, Sid Garrard, that you ain't 
 the only man in Kentucky that kin make a 
 '3
 
 194 The Opponents 
 
 speech ; an' I tell you to yo' face, Sid Garrard, 
 that I been fer you, thick an' thin, wet er dry, 
 play er pay ; that I have stood up fer you tell 
 I have been knocked down fer you ; that I 
 have been made fun of fer you, got drunk fer 
 you, fell outn trees fer you ; that I have been 
 called a lie when I said you was ag'in' the pluty- 
 crats an' that I always up an' give it out flat- 
 footed that thes they wait tell you come to the 
 plutycrats. But I have done foun' you out 
 to-night, Sid Garrard, an' I let you know that 
 I wash my hands er you. Yes, sir, I wash my 
 hands er you. An' now, feller citizens," turning 
 to the raiders, " le's all give three cheers fer 
 Tunstall ! " 
 
 The cheers were given boisterously, and as 
 the orator rode back to his companions Nelse 
 Tigert called after him : 
 
 " Say, Dunk, nex' time you wanter disguise 
 yo'self you better take yo' mask an' put it on 
 Uncle Jesse Craik's mule." 
 
 The four men returned to the toll-house, and 
 the raiders for perhaps ten minutes held the 
 position they had taken beyond the slippery- 
 elm. They were noisy with laughter, a few 
 oaths, some argument and protestation, but 
 finally they rode away in the direction whence
 
 Some Raiders and a Theory 195 
 
 they had come, an occasional whoop and two 
 or three pistol-shots marking their recession. 
 
 " Your theory about rioters, Sid," observed 
 Nixon, sitting on the edge of the toll-house 
 porch, " seems to have been right in this 
 instance. There goes your mob." 
 
 "And there go enough votes to give the 
 county to Tunstall," added Hugh Letcher.
 
 XVI 
 
 "FROM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT" 
 
 ABOUT a month later the Luttroll County con 
 vention was held at Yardley, to select delegates 
 to the district convention. The ladies of 
 Letcher Tavern had spent that month in the 
 mountains of West Virginia, and, undiverted 
 by their presence, both Tunstall and Garrard 
 had devoted their time to the campaign for 
 Congress. On the night before the convention 
 a staff correspondent of the Louisville G/obesent 
 this despatch from Yardley to his paper : - 
 
 " The eve before the battle for the Luttroll delega 
 tion to-morrow finds both sides stubbornly contesting 
 every point and the friends of both Tunstall and 
 Garrard claiming the victory. There has been no 
 such fight in any county of the district as in old Lut 
 troll. It is not only the home county of both con 
 testants, but it is thought to be the keystone to the 
 district arch. In other words, the general belief is 
 that the Luttroll delegation in the district convention
 
 " From a Staff Correspondent " 1 97 
 
 will hold the balance of power, and that whoever 
 names the Luttroll delegation to-morrow will win the 
 nomination two weeks later. This seems to be as 
 sure a forecast as can be made in politics, and in my 
 previous despatches covering the district I have given 
 convincing facts and reasons for this conclusion. In 
 a nutshell, to recapitulate the result of my thorough 
 canvass of the entire district, the situation seems 
 clearly to be that without the vote of Luttroll there 
 will be a deadlock in the district convention between 
 Tunstall, Garrard, and Poindexter, and to break this 
 deadlock the vote of Luttroll will be absolutely neces 
 sary. The interest in the county convention at 
 Yardley to-morrow is, therefore, more intense, in all 
 probability, than it will be in the district convention 
 at Bracebury next month. For, in this view of the 
 situation, it is at Yardley, rather than at Bracebury, 
 that the identity of the next Congressman from this 
 district is to be decided. 
 
 " Poindexter has made no fight for this county. 
 Tunstall has spoken only once, and very briefly, but 
 his campaign has been a thoroughgoing Tunstall 
 campaign. What that means, many a gentleman who 
 has gone up against it and who is now in the retire 
 ment of private life knows too well. From personal 
 observation I can say that Tunstall's organization in 
 the county is as expert a piece of workmanship as 
 that master of the art ever turned out. It seems to 
 be perfect His friends and managers claim that they
 
 198 The Opponents 
 
 will have no trouble in naming and instructing the 
 delegation to-morrow, and it is evident that they are 
 confident in their claims. 
 
 " On the other hand, Garrard's fight has been as 
 plucky as was ever made by a crippled bulldog. For 
 pure gameness and grit I have never seen it surpassed. 
 At the outset of the campaign the odds in Luttroll 
 were with Garrard. He had lived all his life in the 
 county ; Tunstall had only of late years returned to 
 resume his residence here. As a young man, Gar 
 rard was personally popular in an exceptional degree. 
 It was this popularity, his sociable, free-and-easy 
 democracy, that elected him to the Legislature the 
 first time, notwithstanding the fact, as I am reliably 
 informed, that his candidacy then was taken largely 
 as a joke. But he made such a record and reputa 
 tion that, though it is a question if a majority of his 
 party here did not disapprove of his tendency to in 
 dependence in the Speaker's chair, his home people 
 were tickled at the prominence he had given the dis 
 trict and were more or less proud of him on that 
 account This and, perhaps more than this, his un- 
 diminished personal popularity gave him, at the 
 beginning of the present campaign, an advantage over 
 Tunstall in the county. If to-morrow's convention 
 had been held a month ago, it would have been a 
 Garrard convention, notwithstanding TunstalPs superb 
 work. But the now celebrated incident of the Con- 
 way toll-gate turned the county against Garrard in a
 
 " From a Staff Correspondent " 199 
 
 night. The anti-toll-gate craze was at its height. 
 Many of these people had worked themselves up to 
 the belief that it was . justifiable to destroy the toll- 
 gates. Others, ever ready to range themselves against 
 the established order, and still others, ever ready to 
 take a drink and smash a law for the fun of it, swelled 
 the free-turnpike crusaders to such numbers that when 
 Garrard openly defended the Conway gate against 
 them, even threatening them with the penitentiary 
 and the halter, his cause seemed hopeless. The 
 wonder was that he did not quit the race. His friends 
 gave up, to a man, and several who had money, hats, 
 and cigars on his winning paid their bets. But Gar 
 rard was no quitter. Like Paul Jones, when appar 
 ently knocked out of the water, he had only just 
 begun to fight. It was then that the same stuff 
 showed in him that showed in his course as Speaker. 
 Instead of surrendering, he changed his plan of cam 
 paign and boldly pitched it in defiance of the lawless 
 element he had aroused against himself. He ' car 
 ried the war into Africa.' He went over every foot 
 of the county, making a speech every day, sometimes 
 two or three a day, openly demanding the observance 
 of the law, however unpopular it might be, uncom 
 promisingly reprobating lawlessness, insisting that 
 lawful methods alone must be followed in freeing the 
 turnpikes, declaring that he would repeat, if neces 
 sary, his action at the Conway gate, and that he would 
 do what he could as a citizen of the State to prevent
 
 2oo The Opponents 
 
 the nullification of its laws and to impose upon those 
 guilty the penalty of their crimes. 
 
 " Naturally his campaign was a hot one. Time 
 and again was he warned not to visit, or to leave, 
 different parts of the county. More than once was 
 his life covertly threatened, and it is an open secret 
 that his friends feared for his safety ; while predic 
 tions were heard on every hand that he would not live 
 through the campaign. But he was to be neither 
 dissuaded nor intimidated. He kept up what many 
 termed his foolhardy fight to the end. And not with 
 out result. Kentuckians love a good fighter, a square 
 fighter, a foolhardy fighter. There was no discount 
 on Garrard's honesty and courage, however much 
 there may have been on his principles. Those who 
 agreed with him were all the more active in his in 
 terest, but even among the free-turnpike element 
 there was in time some reaction, though the ex 
 tremists among them are all still wild for Tunstall, 
 who had the shrewdness not to entangle himself 
 in this matter, which, after all, does not come with 
 in the scope of Congress. As it is, the friends of 
 Garrard, who had given up the ghost three weeks 
 ago, now claim that they will be able to control 
 the convention to-morrow, though by a small 
 margin." 
 
 At the bottom of the last sheet of the fore 
 going despatch, as received at the office of
 
 " From a Staff Correspondent " 201 
 
 the Globe, was this private message to the 
 editor : 
 
 " Have tried to follow instructions and give sum 
 mary of situation from standpoint of both sides with 
 out committing the paper to forecasting success of 
 either. Tunstall has a cinch." 
 
 The same correspondent's detailed report of 
 the convention as it appeared in the Globe was 
 preceded by this introduction : 
 
 "The unexpected has happened. While the sup 
 porters of Tunstall were last night sure of naming a 
 straight Tunstall delegation in the convention to-day, 
 and while the supporters of Garrard were claiming 
 that their man would win ; while most people here 
 were confident that Tunstall would have a solid dele 
 gation, and while some clung to the hope that Garrard 
 might pull through, no one looked for the actual 
 result a dog-fall. It had been universally assumed 
 that either Tunstall or Garrard would have the entire 
 delegation. It had not been conceived within the 
 range of probabilities that the best that either would 
 be able to secure would be an uninstructed, divided 
 delegation. Yet that was the outcome of to-day's 
 convention, the delegation, which was chosen after a 
 long and fierce struggle on both sides, being not only 
 uninstructed, but being, as far as can be ascertained,
 
 2O2 The Opponents 
 
 pretty evenly balanced between the two candidates. 
 How sharply the line of cleavage in the delegation is, 
 may be judged from the fact that the Garrard men 
 are represented on it by such leaders as the Hon. 
 Hugh Letcher, the Hon. Robert K. Nixon, the Hon. 
 Nelson Tigert, and the Hon. W. C. (" Pap ") Maxey ; 
 while among Tunstall's partisans on the delegation 
 are the Hon. Shelby Letcher, the Hon. John W. 
 Driggs, the Hon. Breckinridge Bodine, the Hon. 
 Jesse D. Craik, and the Hon. Dunkerson Peabody. 
 How this desperately fought battle came to be a drawn 
 battle, forms one of the most interesting chapters in 
 Kentucky politics." 
 
 As such a chapter is not essential to this 
 narrative, nor materially different from many 
 chapters in the politics of other States, the 
 remainder of the Globe's despatch, describing 
 in full the proceedings of the Yardley conven 
 tion, is not reproduced here.
 
 XVII 
 
 MARGARET HELM SHOCKS GOOD PEOPLE 
 
 MEANTIME, in the mountains of West Virginia, 
 the woman who had once been Morgan Tun- 
 stall's wife had met the woman he wished to 
 make his wife. 
 
 This summer resort to which Mrs. Letcher, 
 with Margaret Helm and Florence, had come 
 was one of several similar places in the Alle- 
 ghanies. Aside from its high altitude, its 
 primary attraction is a copious spring whose 
 waters, according to tradition, were once chemi 
 cally analyzed, what purports to have been the 
 result being presented upon the hotel sta 
 tionery to this day. The hotel itself is a large, 
 massive structure of brick, built in the substan 
 tial and simple style of the Virginia of a hun 
 dred years ago. The long, two-story building, 
 with its spacious dining-room and ball-room 
 and its scores of bed-rooms, is girdled by wide 
 galleries. Steps run down from these galleries
 
 204 The Opponents 
 
 to a tree-studded lawn, that extends some two 
 hundred yards to the spring and the swimming 
 pool and to the flanking brick cottages. The 
 frequenters of this resort are mainly from Vir 
 ginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana, the society of 
 Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Louisville, 
 and New Orleans being always well represented 
 here in July and August. Many families return 
 here summer after summer until they are re 
 garded as fixtures of the season, and the women 
 who got their first taste of social life here as 
 young girls, before formally entering upon the 
 stage as " debutantes," come back here year after 
 year, and continue as matrons, widows, or old 
 maids the life they first learned here as chil 
 dren. It is yet one place in the country where 
 the old maid may be seen, not the bachelor 
 girl or the new woman, but the real, feminine 
 old maid, on whom the originally doubtful 
 designation sits as a distinction, who is rich 
 in memories of past summers on this lawn and 
 in this ball-room, and who would be out of place 
 at the mountain and sea-side resorts of a more 
 modern and garish fashion. Dancing and 
 dining have long been the principal divertise- 
 ments here. There are dancers in the ball 
 room every evening, and occasionally there is
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 205 
 
 a formal cotillion. Cards and a little horse 
 back riding help to pass the time. In the 
 mornings there is a brass concert on the lawn, 
 and latterly golf links are an innovation wel 
 comed by the more actively inclined. 
 
 The Letchers mother and daughter and 
 Margaret Helm had been here about ten days 
 when Mrs. Grace Knowles arrived with her 
 maid and took one of the cottages. Margaret's 
 attention was first directed to her because of 
 her isolation. She seemed to have neither 
 friends nor acquaintances among the guests. 
 When visible at all, she was always alone. In 
 the dining-room she had to herself a little table 
 in an inconspicuous corner near the entrance. 
 Sometimes she sat stiffly for a quarter of an 
 hour on the hotel gallery before returning to 
 her cottage. Usually during the morning con 
 certs she appeared with a book in her hand, if 
 there was an unoccupied seat on some unfre 
 quented part of the lawn. It was plain that 
 she did not seek to make any overtures for the 
 establishment of a social relation different from 
 that which she had accepted from the first, and 
 it was equally plain that the guests, taking 
 their cue from the Kentuckians, had no thought 
 of assuming any different attitude toward her.
 
 206 The Opponents 
 
 They simply ignored her, even the middle- 
 aged idlers of her own sex rarely exchanging a 
 covert sneer at her. 
 
 Margaret Helm, who did not know and had 
 not asked anything of the history of this poor 
 creature, could not help some feeling of pity 
 for her. It was clear that she was without the 
 pale, for what reason Margaret had neither 
 knowledge nor curiosity, but the loneliness of 
 the woman, the quiet bravado with which she 
 recognized her position and persisted in her 
 course, appealed to Margaret with a touch of 
 pathos. This appeal was not weakened by 
 Margaret's realization, which was soon forced 
 on her, that she herself seemed to be an object 
 of some exceptional interest to Mrs. Knowles. 
 Margaret became aware that Mrs. Knowles 
 was given to eying her at every opportunity. 
 When the two were at all near each other, it 
 mattered not how many other people were in 
 the vicinity, Margaret could rarely look toward 
 Mrs. Knowles without finding the woman's 
 gaze fixed on her, with something in its ex 
 pression that puzzled her in its suggestion of 
 fear and longing. 
 
 In appearance Mrs. Knowles was not attrac 
 tive. One's first casual impression on beholding
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 207 
 
 her would be of a studied artificiality to stay 
 and replace the physical charms of youth, the 
 result being, instead of the arrest of decay or 
 the obliteration of its effects, a more positive 
 defmement of its ravages and an aggressive 
 materialization of the persistence with which 
 the losing fight against it had been made. A 
 closer study of the face might reveal a con 
 sciousness of the futility of the fight, and this 
 in itself added to the countenance a further 
 touch of hardness, to be interpreted possibly 
 as the index of a settled stoicism. Such an 
 observer as circumstances and sensibility had 
 made of Margaret Helm would have quickly 
 concluded that this stoicism was rooted more 
 deeply than in the failure of a vain woman to 
 preserve her beauty. 
 
 One morning Margaret and Florence had 
 been sitting on a bench at the edge of the 
 lawn, Margaret with a book and Florence with 
 her work-basket. The concert was about half 
 over when Florence left and went to the hotel. 
 A few minutes later Margaret looked up and 
 saw Mrs. Knowles standing a dozen yards 
 away. She was gazing intently, appealingly, at 
 Margaret, and she seemed to shrink back a 
 step as Margaret raised her eyes. Her hand
 
 208 The Opponents 
 
 went nervously to her bosom, which Margaret 
 could see was agitated. 
 
 " She is trying to make up her mind to come 
 over here and speak to me," was Margaret's 
 conclusion as she turned again to her book. 
 
 She had not read ten lines before she was 
 aware that Mrs. Knowles had walked forward 
 and stopped at one end of the bench. Marga 
 ret's eyes remained on the page, though she 
 was no longer reading. 
 
 "May I sit here?" said a voice timidly un 
 certain, yet with a strain of defiance. " All the 
 other seats seem occupied." 
 
 Margaret glanced up perfunctorily. 
 
 " Certainly," she answered ; after which she 
 returned to her book. 
 
 She read a paragraph twice without compre 
 hension. Two thirds of the guests, most of 
 them women, were on the lawn, and Margaret 
 felt that the eyes of every one of them were 
 directed toward her. In spite of herself a flush 
 began to steal into her face, and the conscious 
 ness of this only deepened the flush and stung 
 her with prickling points of heat. She turned 
 over the leaf ostentatiously, and seeing that 
 the novel ended with only another quarter page, 
 she read it religiously, being careful to hold the
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 209 
 
 book so that Mrs. Knowles might easily per 
 ceive that the last of the closing chapter had 
 been reached. Then she shut the volume with 
 a final snap, gazed meditatively at nothing for 
 a few seconds, as if weighing what she had 
 read, and without glancing at Mrs. Knowles a 
 second time, rose and walked across the lawn 
 to the hotel. 
 
 It was a longer walk than it had ever been to 
 her before. There were so many people to be 
 passed, and most of them looked at her with 
 something more than conventional bows or 
 words of recognition, their voices and smiles 
 betraying their approving, and in some in 
 stances sympathetically amused, appreciation 
 of what she had done. But this approval and 
 amusement, restrained and well bred as they 
 were, grated uncomfortably on the girl as she 
 went toward the hotel. She could not help 
 feeling that she had done a small thing ; that 
 she had pettily and publicly wounded a fellow 
 creature ; and that, however callous this woman 
 had become, the wound was real and needless. 
 Margaret inwardly resented the commendatory 
 interest which she perceived as she made her 
 way past these refined-faced, so ft -voiced wo 
 men. At the moment she would have pre- 
 14
 
 21 o The Opponents 
 
 ferred their contempt to their commendation. 
 She had a flood of her own contempt. 
 
 As she went into the hotel, her steps quick 
 ened and her color heightened. Her rising 
 anger burned in her cheeks and eyes. Enter 
 ing her room, she walked across it two or three 
 times with aimless impatience. She stopped 
 at a window and looking out over the lawn, 
 saw the lonely figure of Mrs. Knowles still sit 
 ting stiffly on the bench. 
 
 " It was cowardice ! cowardice ! " she in 
 dignantly said aloud. " I had nothing against 
 her! I felt nothing against her! I did it 
 simply because those people were looking on, 
 and I was afraid to be seen with her ! " 
 
 She turned impetuously from the window 
 and started across the room to the door. At 
 the table on which she had dropped the book 
 she had been reading, she suddenly halted, 
 stood irresolute for an instant, and then seized 
 another book lying on the table. She was 
 transformed in a flash. The anger in her face 
 and voice was routed by a childish and joyous 
 radiance. Looking through the window again, 
 she laughed gayly : 
 
 " They thought that I left the poor soul be 
 cause I would not sit on the same seat with
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 211 
 
 her ; they shall think now that I left her only 
 to get another book." 
 
 She hurried down the stairs with a ripple of 
 song on her lips, but as she emerged from the 
 hotel she restrained her steps to the more de 
 liberate dignity and assumed the more normal 
 unconcerned and reposeful expression which 
 were quite the thing among young women of 
 the best circles at this resort. 
 
 As she retraced her way across the lawn 
 straight to the seat by Mrs. Knowles, Margaret, 
 holding her skirts with one hand and the fresh 
 book with the other, longed to smile at the 
 imperfectly repressed signs of astonishment 
 which she saw, from the corners of her eyes, 
 among the good people in sight of whom she 
 passed. But she forgot these as she drew near 
 Mrs. Knowles, and noticed the even more im 
 perfectly repressed intensity and eagerness 
 with which that woman watched her coming, 
 the incredulity, surprise, and suspense which 
 broke over and almost softened the painted 
 and cracked face. Involuntarily Margaret 
 hastened her approach a little, and as she 
 regained the seat she had left a few minutes 
 before, there was an answering quickening of 
 her own breath to that which heaved the
 
 212 The Opponents 
 
 breast of the woman at the other end of the 
 bench. 
 
 Their eyes met as Margaret sat down. Mrs. 
 Knowles reluctantly turned her head away, and 
 Margaret bent over and scanned the title-page 
 of her book. She had seen, with a momentary 
 little ache in her throat, that Mrs. Knowles' 
 eyes, which had seemed as if they had been 
 forever dry, suddenly filled. 
 
 After a little Margaret summoned her will, 
 and said with a fairly successful effort to appear 
 at natural ease : 
 
 "Do you know, I am just starting to read 
 Comnterford ? Everybody else seems to have 
 read it long ago, and I feel dreadfully behind 
 the times." 
 
 Mrs. Knowles flinched perceptibly. She 
 turned at the words, her lips twitching in 
 silence before she framed an answer. 
 
 " I have not read it either," she said ner 
 vously. " It it is a sequel to The Survivors, 
 is it not? If it is as good as The Survivors, 
 you have a treat before you, don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 " Indeed, I have n't even read The Survivors. 
 I do remember now that Comnterford is a 
 sequel to it, and I suppose one should read
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 2 1 3 
 
 The Survivors first ; but there are so few books 
 of any kind here that one has little choice." 
 
 " I have a copy of The Survivors. If you 
 would like to read it, I 'd be glad to lend it to 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! And as you have n't read 
 Commerford we might exchange." 
 
 Thus the acquaintance between the two be 
 gan. The good people on the lawn were not 
 near enough to hear the conversation between 
 Miss Helm and "that Knowles woman," but 
 they saw with due astonishment that there was 
 a conversation, which lasted fully five minutes, 
 and they were still further shocked when Miss 
 Helm actually walked by the side of the 
 Knowles woman to the door of the latter's 
 cottage and waited while the woman entered 
 and reappeared with a book, which Miss Helm 
 received from her and bore back to the hotel ! 
 Miss Helm was a very nice girl, but she was 
 evidently unusually ignorant or unusually in 
 discreet. Mrs. Letcher should look after her 
 charge more closely. 
 
 It was not long before Mrs. Letcher did take 
 it upon herself to do what she called her duty 
 by Margaret. Florence Letcher had remon 
 strated with Margaret against having anything
 
 214 The Opponents 
 
 to do with Mrs. Knowles; but Margaret, while 
 readily promising that she would not seek the 
 woman's society, for which she had no desire, 
 refused to agree to cut her or snub her when 
 thrown in contact with her. Florence then 
 carried the case to her mother. 
 
 " It was just like Margaret," Florence said, 
 after explaining the matter to Mrs. Letcher. 
 " She sees that everybody here disapproves 
 of her course, and that makes her all the more 
 stubborn." 
 
 " It is more like her to pity the creature 
 so that she is willing to scandalize the whole 
 place rather than hurt the feelings of one 
 woman. Margaret is a dear girl, but she is 
 peculiar in some things." 
 
 " As if such a woman has any feelings to be 
 hurt, or if she has, as if they ought not to be 
 hurt ! Margaret is a dear old goose, and she 
 only laughs when I tell her so." 
 
 " How much have you told her about the 
 Knowles woman ? " 
 
 " That she was the wife of one man and ran 
 away with another, whom she afterwards mar 
 ried ; that in Louisville, where she lived with 
 her first husband and where she was brazen 
 enough to live with her second also, nobody
 
 Margaret Shocks Good People 2 1 5 
 
 had anything to do with her. That was all I 
 knew about the woman myself, except that her 
 first husband was Mr. Tunstall." 
 
 " And did you tell Margaret that, too ? " 
 
 " N-no. I did n't see the use. She knows 
 all about Mr. Tunstall's marriage and divorce 
 that the rest of us know, except that this par 
 ticular woman was the one who was his wife. 
 It would n't make any difference, but it would 
 make it unpleasant to tell her that, don't you 
 think so?" 
 
 "Yes, I understand. And she will find it 
 out from somebody soon enough, anyway." 
 
 Mrs. Letcher herself, in accordance with 
 Florence's suggestion, gave Margaret a " lec 
 ture " on her civility to the Knowles woman; 
 but Mrs. Letcher was a poor lecturer of any 
 body, and a very poor lecturer of Margaret; 
 the result being that instead of carrying her 
 point she half-way apologized to Margaret, 
 when the girl, at the end of the argument be 
 tween them, took her chaperone's face between 
 her hands, and kissing her, smiled appealingly : 
 
 " Please do not be vexed with me, dear Mrs. 
 Letcher, and please do not ask me to snub the 
 poor thing. I '11 promise never to make any 
 advances toward her, but when we are thrown
 
 216 The Opponents 
 
 together let me be polite to her. She prob 
 ably has been a bad woman, and may be yet, 
 but it won't do her any harm, or me either, 
 to treat her like a human being ; on the con 
 trary, I can see it does her real good."
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 MRS. GRACE KNOWLES had come to this par 
 ticular mountain resort simply because she had 
 seen in the papers that Margaret Helm was 
 there. 
 
 Kentuckians had never fully understood the 
 destruction of Morgan Tunstall's home and the 
 sequel as lived by the Knowles pair not half a 
 mile from the spot where that home had been. 
 All that they knew was that Morgan Tunstall's 
 young wife had fled one night with Julius 
 Knowles, a leader in cultured and fashionable 
 circles ; that Tunstall had secured a divorce ; 
 that Julius Knowles had married the woman, 
 and that the two had returned to Louisville and 
 lived in isolation as man and wife until the death 
 of Knowles. Why they chose Louisville of all 
 spots on earth, and why Tunstall never took 
 any step to avenge the wrong that had been 
 done him never even noticing the existence 
 of the couple long enough to put a bullet
 
 2i 8 The Opponents 
 
 through either of them was known only to 
 the Knowleses and Tunstall himself. If the 
 whole of this story had been public property, 
 as were several other stories of real life in 
 Louisville which readers of fiction would pro 
 nounce much more improbable, it would at 
 least have made it easier for Tunstall at 
 first; and as for that, Kentuckians to this day 
 have been heard to intimate that, though Mor 
 gan Tunstall surely in other instances proved 
 his courage and protected his " honor," there 
 must be some sort of " yellow streak " in a 
 man who would silently submit, without so 
 much as a lifted hand, to the insult which 
 Julius Knowles put upon him. It was, in 
 deed, this feeling that had been, at the begin 
 ning, the one obstacle to Tunstall's success 
 in politics. 
 
 On the night when Tunstall had declared to 
 his wife and Julius Knowles the alternatives 
 noted in the first of these pages, he had been 
 tremendously in earnest Immediately after 
 ward he had gone so far in his plan then an 
 nounced as to send a detective to shadow the 
 couple when they left the city, but had re 
 called him in less than a month, and had 
 abandoned the plan, except as to the prosecu-
 
 The Penalty 219 
 
 tion of the action for divorce. The passion of 
 the crisis passed, he did not care to concern 
 himself about this faithless woman and treach 
 erous man. To spend his life in the execution 
 of a scheme to punish them would be to spend 
 his life in punishing himself by keeping them 
 constantly in his mind. He turned his back 
 on them and did what he could to forget them. 
 But he did not stoop to tell them that he had 
 put aside his purpose, and they never knew 
 that he had. Knowles, being the coward that 
 Tunstall had pronounced him, had gone on to 
 his death, or at least until he was too callous to 
 care, believing in Tunstall's vengeance because 
 fearing it. Tunstall did not know it at the time, 
 and may never have known it, but it was only 
 necessary for a man like himself to wind the 
 spring of cowardice in a man like Knowles in 
 order to set going the machinery of his subse 
 quent life. He might throw away the key and 
 disappear himself, but his object was accom 
 plished. Knowles knew that during the first 
 few weeks after his departure from Tunstall's 
 home with Grace Tunstall, Tunstall's spy had 
 been set upon him; ever afterward or until 
 the time came when he cared for nothing 
 he was sure that he was always within reach
 
 22O The Opponents 
 
 of Tunstall's spies, and all the surer of it when 
 he did not see them. 
 
 There is a square in Louisville which, when 
 this man and woman returned to the city as hus 
 band and wife, was one of the most fashionable 
 residential quarters of the place. To-day it is a 
 square of cheap boarding-houses, tenements, 
 shoe-shops, plumbers' shops, and laundries, while 
 one of the aristocratic mansions of the earlier 
 time is now occupied entirely by negroes. 
 This is the square on which Julius Knowles 
 bought a handsome house, after vainly trying 
 to lease one of the desirable houses that were 
 " For Rent," though not to him. Here the 
 Knowleses made their home, to the consterna 
 tion of the neighbors, some of whom quietly 
 formed a syndicate among themselves and 
 offered Knowles, through a real-estate agent, 
 three times what he had paid for the house. 
 Failing in their efforts to secure the departure 
 of the Knowleses, these neighbors began grad 
 ually sacrificing their own residences and mov 
 ing to less objectionable parts of the city, 
 making room for others not so fastidious as to 
 their environment. The descent of the square, 
 thus begun, was easy and inevitable. 
 
 The Knowleses were sensible enough at first
 
 I 
 
 The Penalty 221 
 
 to stay closely within their handsome house. 
 Even in summer, when everybody sits out of 
 doors, they did not show themselves. There 
 was a hush over the grim walls of the massive 
 building, a sombreness in its heavy shade, 
 that were impressive to those of even little 
 imagination. Passers turned curious, solemn 
 faces to its blank front, and nurses trundled 
 their baby-carriages on the far side of the 
 street. 
 
 For the first few months these two, behind 
 the closed doors of their home, convinced 
 themselves that they found enough in each 
 other to make life not only endurable but de 
 sirable. They had been infatuated with each 
 other; at least, he had been infatuated with 
 her, and her vanity had been intoxicated with 
 his infatuation. The reaction had not yet come 
 fully to either. They succeeded in keeping 
 alive for a while something of their old passion. 
 They cheated themselves, at times, into belief 
 that this was enough. " Tunstall was a fool," 
 Knowles said at one of these times. " What 
 does it matter where we are, so that we are 
 together?" 
 
 But beyond this passion they had little to 
 feed the life they were living. They might
 
 222 The Opponents 
 
 have got on as well as many married couples 
 if they had not been thrown entirely on their 
 own resources, if he had been in business, if 
 she had had friends and social distractions. 
 But they had only themselves, and they could 
 not sleep enough to keep their waking hours 
 from dragging. Knowles had been fond of 
 reading before his marriage; books were a 
 dead language to him now. He was neither 
 in nor of their world ; he cared nothing for it ; 
 the volumes in the library were so much decay 
 ing paper and leather. Sometimes he glanced 
 at the Globe, though he took little interest in 
 what he saw there, and when he found his wife 
 poring over the "society" news through her 
 tears he threatened to forbid that the sheet 
 should be brought into the house. Knowles 
 had loved merry company, and being a man of 
 sufficient wealth to follow his inclinations un 
 hampered by the necessity of earning his daily 
 bread, he had usually found congenial and con 
 vivial companionship, if not in one part of the 
 world, in another. But the club, which had 
 been the centre of his life in Louisville, was 
 now closed to him, and the good fellows who 
 had constituted his " set " now passed him by 
 without seeing him. He spent his days at
 
 The Penalty 223 
 
 home, smoking, pulling the ears of his dog, or 
 walking slowly back and forth under the grape 
 arbor at the rear of the house. 
 
 Mrs. Knowles had one material advantage 
 over Knowles in getting through this existence : 
 she could sleep much more than he could. 
 She lay in bed till noon, with the blinds drawn, 
 and she could burrow on her face at almost any 
 hour of the afternoon and doze. Then, too, 
 her toilets took up much of her time. For 
 nearly a year after her marriage to Knowles 
 she was exceedingly careful about her toilets. 
 She was solicitous to preserve and heighten 
 her beauty. It is true that few besides Knowles 
 saw her during that first year, but she under 
 stood that she must fight against the marks of 
 age and decay if she would retain Knowles' 
 interest, while, beyond that, she was anxious 
 that not even the servants should have reason 
 to notice that Mrs. Knowles was any the less 
 beautiful or happy than Mrs. Tunstall had 
 been. This engrossment in her dress was a 
 double gratification to Knowles. It preserved 
 much of the charm that had at first captivated 
 him, and it afforded him hours of reprieve 
 from the task of trying to entertain her and of 
 pretending to be entertained by her. It gave
 
 224 The Opponents 
 
 him hours for the more satisfying employment 
 of pulling the ears of his dog. 
 
 Mrs. Knowles also had frequent recourse to 
 the piano. She had learned partially three 
 " pieces " at school, and she thrummed them on 
 an excellent piano with a great deal of energy. 
 Knowles, who was an ardent lover of good 
 music, was reconciled to his wife's three pieces. 
 They not only occupied considerable of her 
 time, but they occupied it usually at dusk, when 
 the neighbors were sitting on their porches, 
 an hour which Mrs. Knowles seemed to think 
 especially suitable for indicating that the closed 
 doors of her own house did not exclude domes 
 tic gayeties and graces, and certainly an hour 
 especially suitable for the strolls of Knowles 
 and his dog out the back way and over the 
 commons. Those strolls with his dog over the 
 darkening fields were almost cheerful hiatuses 
 in the routine of Knowles' existence at that 
 period. 
 
 Another pastime of Mrs. Knowles was to 
 stand behind the blinds and watch those who 
 walked or drove by. Sometimes her face 
 flushed, but more often hardened, as she saw 
 the cold countenances turned curiously on her 
 house, and again she shrank back suddenly as
 
 The Penalty 225 
 
 if fearing discovery by those who had once 
 been her associates and even friends. Knowles 
 found her at two o'clock one morning kneeling 
 in her night-gown at a window and peering at 
 the house next door before its owners had 
 given it up to the dyers and the massage pro 
 fessor listening to the old familiar dance 
 music and intent on catching a glimpse, among 
 the dancers or the departing guests, of those 
 she had once known. 
 
 After dark it was some easier, at least on 
 Knowles. The two could kill the hours before 
 bedtime in long walks or longer drives ; silent, it 
 is true, for the most part, but relieved to some 
 extent by varying scene and incident on which 
 a remark could be hung. It was motion, it 
 was change, and though commonplace enough, 
 it gave better sleep afterward ; while even com 
 monplaces were important to lives in whose 
 stagnation the daily visits of the butcher and 
 the annual arrival of the caterpillars were 
 notable events. Still, those evening walks and 
 drives with his wife were not to Knowles all 
 that his strolls with his dog were. 
 
 In the first few weeks after the couple's re 
 turn to Louisville Mrs. Knowles had discovered 
 that her husband was not immune from jeal-
 
 226 The Opponents 
 
 ousy. He had come in one evening and found 
 her at the door talking to a well-dressed man. 
 She had explained truthfully that the stranger 
 had rung the bell believing that the former 
 owner of the house still resided there, and 
 Knowles had endeavored with poor success to 
 conceal his sudden doubts. Several evenings 
 afterward, returning later than usual from his 
 stroll with the dog, he found a line from his 
 wife informing him that she had gone over 
 to a little park with her maid for a few min 
 utes to listen to the open-air concert. He had 
 crushed the note in his clenched hand and 
 stalked straightway to the park, to find her 
 sitting in the shadow, on a bench on which, 
 besides the maid, was this very stranger. 
 Knowles took her home, and the explosion 
 came. It was in vain she protested that his 
 charges were ridiculous ; that she had not even 
 exchanged a word with the man ; that he had 
 taken his seat on the bench, which was public 
 and one of many, without any attempt to open 
 conversation with her and without appearing 
 even to notice her. Knowles would not listen. 
 He did not wish to hear anything she might say. 
 He would not believe anything she chose to 
 say about such a matter. Morgan Tunstall
 
 The Penalty 227 
 
 may have trusted her once; no other man 
 ever would. 
 
 That had been the beginning of months 
 of espionage on her by Knovvles, of vigilant 
 watching, of sly traps laid for her, of incessant 
 suspicion, hot reproaches, coarse accusations. 
 It was before he ceased to care. Afterward, 
 when he cared for nothing except his degene 
 rate life, and least of all for her, the jealousy 
 was hers, besetting him in tearful whines and 
 peevish nagging, and culminating one night 
 when she followed him to the entrance of a 
 disreputable dance hall and was knocked down 
 by him in his brandy-inflamed exasperation. 
 
 Soon after their return to Louisville they 
 had' assumed a brave front and gone to one of 
 the theatres, but the frigid faces of former as 
 sociates they saw there, the row of forbidding 
 countenances they passed in order to get to 
 their seats, the quiet desertion for another part 
 of the house by a pair who had adjoining seats, 
 deterred them from making another venture in 
 public until the time came when they put 
 qn frigid faces themselves and defiantly went 
 where they chose, if admission was to be had 
 by purchase. 
 
 It was in the second year after their marriage,
 
 228 The Opponents 
 
 while yet life together was tolerable, that their 
 child was born. When Mrs. Knowles came 
 out of the shadow, it was broken to her by her 
 husband that the baby had died, and later, 
 when she insisted on visiting its grave, he ex 
 plained to her that the grave was in his family 
 burying-ground in Virginia; that no child of 
 theirs should sleep in Kentucky soil ; that he 
 had sent the little body to his old home, in 
 order that its last resting-place might be free 
 from the shame it could not have escaped in 
 Louisville. It was not till three years after 
 ward that in one of his outbursts of contemptu 
 ous passion Knowles revealed to her the truth. 
 
 " The child is not dead ! " he had gloated 
 over her. " I took her from your side because 
 I would not allow her to draw sustenance from 
 such a mother ; because I would not allow her 
 to breathe your atmosphere, to be infected by 
 your influence, to be contaminated by your 
 depravity, to share your disgrace. She is 
 growing up among honest people; she has 
 been given an honest name; she has been 
 taught that her father and mother are dead ; 
 she is ignorant of her origin, and she shall 
 always remain ignorant of it." 
 
 Subsequently, when the mother declared her
 
 The Penalty 229 
 
 intention of going to her daughter, Knowles 
 had quietly replied : 
 
 " You will do no such thing ; and for several 
 good reasons. You should not have forgotten 
 yet that Morgan Tunstall does not propose to 
 let you leave Louisville alive during my life 
 time, and even if you escaped him, you could 
 not escape me. I do not propose to let you 
 leave Louisville alive while that child is outside 
 of Louisville. But should you elude both Tun- 
 stall and me, you would be far from accomplish 
 ing your purpose. The family into which the 
 child has been taken know you and your his 
 tory, and they would guard your daughter from 
 you as relentlessly as I do." 
 
 But it was not such threats as these that 
 most restrained Mrs. Knowles from going 
 to her daughter. It was the woman's com 
 mon sense, made acute in the school of her 
 own experience, and made stronger than her 
 maternal yearning. Perhaps it might have 
 been different if the mother had ever known 
 the child, if it had ever had a personality for 
 her, binding itself into her life with the bonds 
 that only actual baby fingers know how to tie. 
 But -from the first she had thought of it as 
 dead, and now, after years, when she knew
 
 230 The Opponents 
 
 otherwise, she knew also that Julius Knowles 
 was more than half right. It was better as it 
 was. It would be the act of a mother unwor- 
 thier even than Julius Knowles held her to open 
 the eyes of an innocent girl to such shame as 
 the world would allot her as the daughter of 
 Julius and Grace Knowles. She made no effort 
 to interfere with Knowles' disposition of the 
 child. She acquiesced in its loss to her as 
 another feature of the inexorable penalty she 
 was paying every hour of her life. 
 
 As the years passed, this man and woman 
 ceased all pretence of interest in each other. 
 She, no longer caring to please him, lapsed 
 into the lassitude of a slattern ; he, fastidious 
 as he had once been regarding her personal 
 appearance, was eventually callous even to 
 disgust at her slovenliness. Though each in 
 turn had burned with jealousy and distrust of 
 the other, they later reached a point where he 
 went his way and she hers, both relieved at the 
 divergence of their paths, and neither con 
 cerned as to where the path of the other led. 
 They continued to make their home in the 
 same house, but beyond that there was no 
 contact with each other, even superficially. 
 She found a way of prolonging her sleeping
 
 The Penalty 231 
 
 hours and of stimulating the dreams and phan 
 tasms of her waking, while he sought society 
 and diversion in drinking-saloons and gambling- 
 rooms. 
 
 The penalty inflicted on these two by Morgan 
 Tunstall bore more heavily on the man than on 
 the woman. She merely degenerated ; he died. 
 Once, in his last besotted days, when he real 
 ized that the end was near, he braced himself 
 with brandy and taking a pistol went in search 
 of Tunstall, determined to surrender his few 
 remaining hours of life, if necessary, to settle 
 his score with Tunstall. But even then his 
 courage failed him, and he dared not face his 
 old enemy, but crept back to the bed from 
 which he did not rise again, his strongest curse 
 being for his own cowardice. 
 
 The death of Julius Knowles left his widow 
 free to go where she pleased, according to the 
 terms of Tunstall's sentence, under which the 
 two had supposed they had lived all the years 
 since its pronouncement. But at first she did 
 not change her place or mode of life. She no 
 longer cared for freedom. There was nowhere 
 to go, nothing outside the old existence to in 
 vite her interest until one day she read in 
 the Globe of Margaret Helm's arrival in the
 
 232 The Opponents 
 
 West Virginia mountains. She read the item 
 many times that day; she hunted the paper 
 again and read the paragraph over the follow 
 ing day. Then a touch of living color came 
 into her face, and she moved about the house 
 for the first time in many months as one who 
 had some definite object in view. She di 
 rected that her wardrobe be put in order; she 
 got out once more her old powders and paints ; 
 and shortly afterward she had taken possession, 
 with her maid, of one of the cottages at the 
 mountain resort where Margaret Helm and 
 the Letchers were spending the latter half of 
 the summer.
 
 XIX 
 
 ANOTHER PENALTY 
 
 THE Yardley convention was the last of the 
 county conventions preliminary to the district 
 convention, which was to assemble at Brace- 
 bury about two weeks later and make the nomi 
 nation for Congress. Morgan Tunstall, knowing 
 that he had done his work well and feeling con 
 fident as to the outcome, decided that during 
 these intervening two weeks he would turn his 
 back on politics and take a rest in the West 
 Virginia mountains. Ordinarily nothing would 
 have diverted him from the field of a political 
 battle before its result was declared, even 
 though, as in this instance, he was sure that 
 he had done, or could yet direct, all that could 
 be done; but now, after summoning two or 
 three of his campaign managers and giving 
 them explicit instructions as to what remained 
 to be looked after, he left the scene of the 
 struggle at Yardley and turned toward Mar 
 garet Helm with a sense of relief and elation.
 
 234 The Opponents 
 
 Before, political battles had been sufficient in 
 themselves to absorb his first interests and to 
 monopolize his energies ; now, they were things 
 that must be got through with in order that he 
 might find time to be with her, things to be 
 won as trophies for her. Tunstall smiled boy 
 ishly as he recognized this transition in himself. 
 It was a new birth that he had never dreamed 
 of as possible, an obliteration and recreation 
 that stirred him profoundly and exquisitely. 
 " I am young again," he told himself as the 
 train bore him on toward those magical moun 
 tains ; " I have no past, and the future is all 
 mine. It is youth, real youth, in all but counted 
 years, which are counted no longer. And, 
 thank God," glancing at his beaming face in 
 the panelled mirror of the car, " I do not even 
 look old. I am not old ! I am not even 
 fifty yet!" 
 
 It was long after midnight when he reached 
 his destination. As the stage-coach that bore 
 him from the railway station neared the old 
 hotel in the mountains, he experienced a strange 
 new impatience and expectancy. Somehow 
 it was as if he were approaching the goal 
 toward which all his longings and hopes had 
 set, and where their full realization awaited
 
 Another Penalty 235 
 
 him. He was almost as a child in his repeated 
 interrogation of the driver as to the distance 
 yet to be traversed, and when at last he was 
 answered that at the next turn of the road 
 the springs would be in sight his pulse was 
 pounding in his temples till the voice of the 
 driver seemed to sink into an echo. At the 
 turn of the road Tunstall's eyes softened and 
 his breath suspended. Swell on swell of the 
 mountain billows stretched away mistily in the 
 moonlight, and in their midst the great hotel, 
 that held all his world now, lay sombre and 
 silent, like some anchored, sleeping ship. 
 
 Drawing nearer, Tunstall, who had fought 
 his way among men with never a too scrupulous 
 hand, felt the awe of a new reverence as he 
 gazed up at the windows of this solemn pile, 
 wondering which of them were hers, and know 
 ing her presence as the worshipper knows the 
 unseen spirit of the shrine before which he 
 bows. With this spell upon Tunstall, the rasp 
 ing halloo of the stage-driver, out of humor 
 because his solitary passenger had refused to 
 wait till morning to make the trip from the 
 station to the hotel, was gratingly discordant, 
 and Tunstall, as silent as the awakened clerk 
 and porter, was shown to his room, acutely
 
 236 The Opponents 
 
 conscious, in every hall and corridor of the old 
 building through which he passed, of the near 
 ness of Margaret Helm. 
 
 He was up early the next morning, long 
 before there was any probability of seeing 
 Margaret, and at last, after he had breakfasted 
 with her and the Letchers, he requested - 
 almost ordered Margaret, as they stepped 
 out on the gallery: 
 
 " Come with me now and show me something 
 of the place." 
 
 There was not much to show, and a quarter 
 of an hour's stroll found them standing on the 
 grassy dome of the nearest hill, from which was 
 the favorite outlook upon the surrounding 
 panorama of valley, ravine, and mountain-side, 
 and at the base of which lay the path from the 
 hotel to the dense woodland beyond. Several 
 rustic seats had been constructed on this hill, 
 and on one of these Margaret was resting 
 after her climb. Tunstall had thrown himself 
 down on the turf, and was looking up at her 
 rather than out on the various aspects of the 
 landscape which she was indicating. 
 
 " But I 'm afraid our scenery does not inter 
 est you," she said, pausing and smiling down 
 on him.
 
 Another Penalty 237 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " he answered quickly ; " more 
 than anything else in the world at least, some 
 of it that I have not beheld since you left 
 Kentucky." 
 
 Her smile vanished instantly, and a tint of 
 pink dawned in the light which to Tunstall 
 seemed to radiate softly from her face, so lumi 
 nously clear against its background of dark 
 green foliage. Tunstall realized that he had 
 been blunt and crude, and he flushed a little 
 himself. 
 
 " Don't think that I meant to be flippant ! " 
 he begged, raising himself to a more erect and 
 more rigid posture. " That speech was de 
 cidedly raw, but a worse objection to it, as I 
 see it, is that it signified so little of what I did 
 mean." 
 
 She was at ease again now, and her smile, 
 more brilliant than before, had returned. 
 
 " Then let it stand," she said with determined 
 lightness. " Surely it is only the speeches that 
 mean things that need to be apologized for on 
 such a morning as this." 
 
 " I shall not apologize for it," he went on, 
 stubbornly refusing to fall into the mood she 
 had assumed, " though it means much much 
 which I did not intend to say when I came up
 
 238 The Opponents 
 
 here this morning, but which I did intend to say 
 some time very soon, and which it has been my 
 one purpose to say almost from the moment I 
 first met you." 
 
 " Please, not now not yet ! " she pleaded, 
 her face suddenly grave with apprehension and 
 appeal. 
 
 " Don't ask me to restrain myself any longer," 
 he answered almost fiercely. " I ought to have 
 spoken before this. It was due to you. There 
 are things which you should know, whatever 
 your your final attitude toward me may 
 be. I want to explain them now, and then, 
 if you insist, I shall go no further until I 
 have your permission, if I am ever to have 
 that." 
 
 " Perhaps I already know what you would 
 explain," she said gently. 
 
 " No ! no ! You cannot. You may have 
 heard something anything. But you cannot 
 have heard the truth. No one on earth knows 
 that, except me and one other, whom you could 
 never meet who could not breathe the same 
 air with you. You probably have heard that 
 I once had a wife, that she proved false, that I 
 secured a divorce. If that were all, or even the 
 worst, I could face you now with less flinching.
 
 Another Penalty 239 
 
 All that is true as far as it goes, but 7 went 
 much farther than that. I took the law of man 
 and God into my own hands, and read it as only 
 vengeance. Under that law of my own usurpa 
 tion I set myself up as judge and executioner, 
 and the penalty I exacted was the most terrible 
 I could conceive. You shall see when I tell 
 you what I have told no one else. It was 
 well, she was false, as I have said. I learned 
 it suddenly. My first impulse was to kill 
 her, to kill him. If they had had a million 
 lives, I could have taken them all and still 
 should not have been satiated. But death is 
 too swift, too merciful. I wanted some punish 
 ment for them more in accordance with the 
 crime they had committed. If I could have 
 been sure of their tortures after death, if I 
 could have devised and directed those tor 
 tures, I should have killed them provided 
 I had not thought of a punishment which to 
 me seemed more horrible than any that could 
 be inflicted in another world." 
 
 She was looking at him as one half unwilling 
 to listen, yet intently held by what he was say 
 ing and by his strongly wrought manner. He 
 thought he detected here a fleeting quiver of 
 the eyelids, a slight shrinking from him, and
 
 240 The Opponents 
 
 he paused. His hand closed with seeming 
 unconsciousness on a tuft of grass, which he 
 pulled from the ground ; his eyes dully swept 
 the horizon; then, returning to hers, blazed 
 steadily with his purpose, as he continued : 
 
 " I did not kill them, but gave them the 
 choice of dying or of living inseparably in their 
 shame as husband and wife, in the city where 
 they had always lived, among those who best 
 knew their infamy. They chose the latter 
 alternative, and paid the penalty to which I 
 condemned them, he escaping it finally in 
 death, and she facing it out to the end in the 
 isolation and ostracism of a social outcast." 
 
 He desisted again, waiting as if for some 
 word from her, but she gave none, her eyes 
 falling beneath his scrutiny and resting on her 
 hands, which she clasped a little convulsively 
 in her lap. 
 
 " After the first few weeks I took no further 
 interest in the case, and did nothing and would 
 have done nothing to enforce the penalty I 
 had pronounced upon them; but they were 
 doubtless ignorant of that ; and so, in the final 
 balancing of the account between us, I suppose 
 I must be credited with the execution of the 
 full sentence.
 
 Another Penalty 241 
 
 "That is, in brief, my story. The part I 
 played in it has never disturbed me in the least 
 until recently until I met you. Then, for 
 the first time, I began to pay the penalty I had 
 inflicted upon myself; for I began to realize 
 that sometime I must tell you this story, and 
 that, when told, it would place another and, 
 perhaps, insuperable barrier between us ; but, 
 hardest of all, I realized that, remaining un 
 told, it would be a still greater barrier between 
 us." 
 
 He studied her face earnestly for some sign 
 of her spirit toward him. It was a very serious 
 face, a very sad face, with eyes fixed far beyond 
 him on the distant mountain tops, but it was a 
 face whose seriousness and sadness were as 
 vague and uninterpretable as the mists which 
 seemed to veil alike those mountain tops and 
 the eyes that were drawn to them. 
 
 " I am not asking of you anything now," he 
 went on, with a rough tension in his voice, 
 " except that if it is possible, in the beauty 
 and charity of your heart, you will not let the 
 story I have told you bar me from your friend 
 ship entirely. Do not judge me irrevocably 
 too hastily, too justly. Make some allowance 
 for the fact that I am a man a misshapen 
 16
 
 242 The Opponents 
 
 abortion of a man whose passions and short 
 comings no woman no woman like you 
 can fully understand. Judge me, if you can, 
 with mercy instead of with justice." 
 
 Her eyes fell to him now, and there was 
 something in their shadowy depths that re 
 called to him suddenly a look that he had seen 
 only once before, in the eyes of his mother as 
 she gazed so long for the last time upon his 
 little face. There was something too in Mar 
 garet's voice which seemed to speak from her 
 eyes as she answered simply : 
 
 " I shall not judge you. It is not for me to 
 judge." 
 
 The words moved him for the moment be 
 yond the power of reply. A little folded fan 
 had slipped from her lap, and he caught it up 
 in his two hands, bowing his head over it and 
 kissing it. 
 
 " How like you ! " he said gratefully. " But 
 it was I who insisted that it was only for me to 
 judge those two poor fools. Your very mercy 
 is to that extent a condemnation." 
 
 He lifted his face to hers again and spoke 
 with increased passion : 
 
 " And yet it is your mercy that I want. Do 
 not withhold it. Give me a chance to redeem
 
 Another Penalty 243 
 
 myself. I know that I am selfish and base still 
 in putting it in that way, but I am at least 
 honest. My only chance is through you. 
 There is not enough good in me to redeem 
 me for its own sake. I want redemption simply 
 because I want to be nearer you, with you, 
 worthier of you." 
 
 A shadow of trouble brooded over her face 
 as she rose to her feet. 
 
 " I think I have said all there is to say," she 
 replied in her low, gravest voice. " I do not 
 judge you, and I am still your friend." 
 
 He stood up beside her, stepping in front of 
 her, to the path descending the hill. 
 
 " Don't go yet," he interposed. " I have not 
 finished. You will listen to me? " 
 
 " Is is it necessary? Is it best? " 
 
 " It is fair. You must hear me some time. 
 It is fair, I think, that having said as much as 
 I have, I should say more. Remember I am 
 asking you nothing now except that you hear 
 me. Won't you sit down again ? I shall not 
 detain you long." 
 
 She took the seat from which she had risen. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, standing above her, 
 his hands awkwardly in his pockets. " I 
 well, I thought I had done with women before
 
 244 The Opponents 
 
 I met you ; then I knew I had never really be 
 gun with them. It has been bad for me, I fear, 
 that I did not meet you long ago. It is only 
 since I knew you that I have had any desire to 
 be what such as you would call a decent man ; 
 that I have regretted my squandered years, 
 my perverted energies. It is only since then 
 that I have felt the sting, if not of conscience, 
 of consciousness; that I have realized that 
 while I have been called a strong man, I have 
 been a weak one, swallowed by, instead of 
 strangling, the demon of my rage, and throw 
 ing away my subsequent life because of the 
 treachery of two weak creatures whom I had 
 trusted. I should have been considered as 
 weak as they if I had gone to the dogs of 
 dissipation and self-destruction on account of 
 their treachery; but, after all, it was dissipa 
 tion that I plunged into that of what we call 
 practical politics and in it I have almost ac 
 complished moral self-destruction. My dissi 
 pation has been to make, for my personal 
 pastime, sport of those things which men more 
 deserving of your respect guard and cherish as 
 the very foundations of our system of national 
 existence and well-being. Nothing that I have 
 done in all these years, though sometimes it
 
 Another Penalty 245 
 
 may have resulted for the good of others, has 
 been done with that object, but only because 
 the doing of it gave me occupation and proved 
 my powers. I do not believe my political 
 methods have been so bad that they would 
 not be considered legitimate by the politi 
 cians generally, though some of them have 
 not been such as I could explain to you 
 with confidence of your approval. But do 
 not think I am pleading repentance in my 
 own behalf now I fear I only repent be 
 cause my sins have so widened the gulf 
 between you and me nor must you infer 
 that I am claiming a complete eleventh-hour 
 reformation. Even in my present political 
 undertaking the only one made from any 
 higher motive than personal divertisement ; the 
 one in which I am enlisted earnestly, ardently 
 because I would have something better than a 
 wasted past to offer you I must confess that 
 I have employed some campaign tactics that I 
 am not proud of when your eyes look into 
 mine, and that would never be countenanced 
 in his own interest by the splendid young fel 
 low who is my opponent. I am trying to show 
 you, not that I can ever be worthy of you, but 
 that it is only through you that I have real-
 
 246 The Opponents 
 
 ized how unworthy I am, or that I hope to be 
 any worthier." 
 
 His voice had deepened and filled with a 
 burden that retarded and finally seemed to 
 weight it to a stop. He paused, his lips com 
 pressed, his steadfast gaze seeking to penetrate 
 the curtains of her fallen lids. When they 
 lifted a little after he ceased speaking, her eyes, 
 sorrowful and compassionate, yet unrevealing 
 that which he yearned most to see, looked 
 frankly, unwaveringly into his. 
 
 He took a step toward her, throwing out 
 his arm in a gesture of impetuous power, 
 only to drop it again impotently at his 
 side. 
 
 " Oh, if I could forget it all ! " he cried, 
 " everything until I met you ! And why not, 
 if you will let me? Yes, why not? We live 
 to-day, not yesterday. I never had a chance 
 for life until I knew you. I want to begin 
 over. I want to look forward and upward to 
 to you. I want to do, to be what is in me to do 
 and be that will please you. I want to be dif 
 ferent because I despise myself when I see 
 myself as you must see me. I want to be dif 
 ferent because I worship you. I want you 
 to help me forget my past by forgetting as
 
 Another Penalty 247 
 
 much of it yourself as you can. A woman can 
 forget much for the sake of a man who loves 
 her as I do you ; she cannot help forgetting it 
 if there is in her own heart any response to his 
 love. Can you? Will you? Ugh!" brush 
 ing his hand across his forehead with fierce im 
 patience, "what am I raving? I love you, 
 Margaret. Everything I have said or could 
 say resolves itself to that. I promised not to 
 ask of you anything now, and yet I am asking 
 you all. But why not? If there is anything 
 in the future for me, why not give it to me 
 or at least give me hope of it now? I have 
 gone so long without you every hour be 
 fore me is so long without you if there is 
 anything you can give me, Margaret, give it 
 now." 
 
 He stood motionless, it seemed breathless, in 
 his suspense, waiting for some sign, searching 
 for it with eyes that might have burned it out 
 of her inmost self. 
 
 She could not face their fire. Her head 
 drooped, her bosom swelled, the glow that had 
 warmed brow, cheeks, and neck faded slowly. 
 Suddenly she raised her head and her eyes 
 fluttered for a moment upon his. She spoke 
 as one half frightened, wholly candid :
 
 248 The Opponents 
 
 " Do not press me for an answer now. I can 
 not give it definitely. I do not know my 
 self yet." 
 
 It was as if his lungs had been suddenly 
 filled with a salt gust from Northern seas. His 
 lax form straightened, his chest distended, 
 and his head was high in the invigorating 
 gale. He looked at her in wordless exaltation. 
 Abruptly the eyes which had not known tears 
 since boyhood were wet. His throat heaved, 
 and leaning over, he raised Margaret's hand to 
 his lips. 
 
 " Thank God for this ! " he said with almost 
 inaudible depth of voice. " You have not yet 
 cast me out ! " 
 
 She moved to go now, and he, turning to 
 descend the hill with her, was startled by the 
 unwholesome face of a woman, made ghastlier 
 by the heliotrope lining of the parasol thrown 
 across her shoulder, and made more repulsive 
 by the sneer on her lips and in her eyes. She 
 was standing in the path below, looking up at 
 Margaret and Tunstall. As he saw her, an in 
 articulate exclamation of astonishment, anger, 
 and disgust escaped Tunstall, and he noticed, 
 as Margaret glanced down to seek the cause 
 of his exclamation, that the sneer on the
 
 Another Penalty 249 
 
 woman's face gave place to a forced smile, as 
 she nodded and walked on toward the woods 
 with a conventional 
 
 " Good-morning." 
 
 " Good-morning, Mrs. Knowles," he was 
 amazed to hear Margaret kindly return.
 
 XX 
 
 THE LIGHT THAT BLASTS 
 
 TUNSTALL'S jaws were clamped, and he did not 
 speak until he was half-way down the hill, which 
 he was descending with a savage desire to 
 lengthen and quicken his stride far beyond the 
 pace necessary to keep him by Margaret's side. 
 
 " You seem to know that woman," he finally 
 said, with a new hardness in his voice. 
 
 " Who? " Margaret asked, as if aroused from 
 a revery. "Oh! Mrs. Knowles?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Only as we know people at a place like this 
 whom we speak to in passing and perhaps ex 
 change a few commonplaces with occasionally." 
 
 " You are aware who she is, I suppose? " 
 
 " Beyond the facts that she is said to have an 
 ugly past, that the guests here ignore her, and 
 that she is evidently not at all happy, I know 
 nothing of her." 
 
 " Then don't seek any closer intimacy with 
 her. She is," pausing and turning with grim
 
 The Light that Blasts 251 
 
 visage to look for a moment at the retreating 
 figure, " the woman I have been telling you 
 of this morning." 
 
 There was a vivid transition from bewilder 
 ment to comprehension, incredulity, and pained 
 concern on Margaret's face as she stared at him 
 with wide eyes. 
 
 " Not " she began, without the courage to 
 finish. 
 
 " Yes. She was once Mrs. Morgan Tunstall." 
 
 " Oh ! " in faint distress, half extending her 
 hand to him with a timid impulse of sympathy, 
 and as quickly withdrawing it, almost before 
 he saw the gesture. " Forgive me, please." 
 
 " Forgive you ? " a touch of ill-concealed 
 tenderness in his tone. " For what? If I 
 had something to forgive you for, I should 
 feel that the distance between us, even by 
 ever so little, was not so vast as it is." 
 
 They went on toward the hotel in silence, 
 with a mutual recognition that it was now no 
 time for words, she with thoughtful eyes down 
 cast on the path in which she was walking, 
 and he with high head and set face, blindly 
 trampling the bending grass and weeds at her 
 side. 
 
 He accompanied her to the steps leading up
 
 252 The Opponents 
 
 to the hotel gallery, and in leaving her there 
 made an effort to summon a conventionality in 
 a natural voice. 
 
 " I think I shall go for a good tramp through 
 the mountains before dinner," he said ; " which 
 route would you recommend ? " 
 
 " The road to the left there is considered the 
 most picturesque, I believe," she answered with 
 a more successful assumption of normal ease 
 than his own effort had been. 
 
 " Thank you," lifting his hat as he receded. 
 " I hope I have not overtaxed you with too 
 much exertion this warm morning?" 
 
 " No, indeed," she smiled. " I am not so 
 frail as that." 
 
 He walked away, with an indifferent glance 
 over the lawn, on which he recognized several 
 people who knew him and who knew who Mrs. 
 Knowles was. He laughed a little as he sneered 
 in an undertone : 
 
 " Don't trouble yourselves to straighten your 
 marshmallow faces, and don't be such hypo 
 crites as to pretend you don't know that I 
 know just what you have been puckering 
 and side-glancing about, or that it makes 
 a particle of difference to me whether you 
 straighten or whether you pucker, or that it
 
 The Light that Blasts 253 
 
 really matters to you whether it makes any 
 difference to me." 
 
 A man among them rose and sauntered 
 toward him, as if to greet him ; but Tunstall, 
 not pausing, struck out into the road which 
 Margaret had indicated. 
 
 " Hullo, Terry ! " he called back, with a 
 wave of the hand, in response to the man's 
 salutation. " I 'm off for a stroll. There are 
 times for mountains and times for marsh- 
 mallows; at present the mountains have it." 
 Which Terry regarded as a poor sort of joke, 
 whose point he could no more discover than 
 he was expected to discover it. 
 
 It was a picturesque road, as Margaret Helm 
 had intimated, though Tunstall might have been 
 blind, so little did it impress him. He ploughed 
 through the dust and crashed over the stones, 
 no more conscious of them than he was of the 
 rugged beauty around and above him. A 
 short hour before he had risen out of his old 
 self, out of the ashes of old faiths and the tor 
 por of the old existence, and had caught again 
 the unfolding vistas of a promised land of 
 perennial blossom and fruitage that lay around 
 a home of trust and truth, a land that had 
 first spread before him in the morning of his
 
 254 The Opponents 
 
 youth and that had vanished, it had seemed 
 forever, in his early manhood. How distinct 
 and near it had drawn before him again to-day, 
 as he had stood before Margaret Helm and at 
 last, grappling the issue he had long contem 
 plated and dreaded, looked into her clear eyes 
 and revealed to her pure heart his past, with 
 the purpose and hope he had dared build above 
 it. And she had not repulsed him ! She had 
 not spurned him back into the rayless past 
 from which her own self had lighted him, nor 
 shut out from him forever the future to which 
 his face was turned. She had simply said that 
 she did not know her own heart. That meant 
 that nothing was yet impossible for him ; and 
 to Tunstall the possible, once he set his will 
 to it, was ultimately the actual. The moment 
 he realized that Margaret Helm, knowing all, 
 had not, as he expressed it, cast him out, had 
 been a moment of awed ecstasy, in which his 
 desires were hopes, all but fulfilled. It was in 
 that crowning moment of promise of all that 
 he longed for that there, in the path on the 
 hillside, the incarnation of his past had sud 
 denly stood before him in the tawdry figure 
 of a woman, confronting her who was the 
 incarnation of his future, interposing between
 
 The Light that Blasts 255 
 
 him and that future with all the theatric ap 
 position of Chance and all the stern inexora- 
 bleness of Fate. Grace Knowles and Margaret 
 Helm here together ! Grace Knowles and 
 Margaret Helm speaking to each other, he 
 between them ! Grace Knowles rising before 
 him the instant he stretched out his hand to 
 Margaret Helm ! Chance, Fate whatever 
 the accursed thing was sardonic as well as 
 theatric and stern. 
 
 He had been walking swiftly for perhaps half 
 an hour when, following the course of the road, 
 as he stepped out on a shelf of the mountain 
 he was astonished to see rise before him, as 
 the sea unexpectedly looms before one through 
 a rift in a dense forest, the green knoll on 
 which he had stood that morning with Mar 
 garet Helm. When he left the hotel, the road 
 he had taken led away from rather than toward 
 this knoll, yet here it was, apparently so near 
 that it seemed as if he could almost leap from 
 the ledge where he had now stopped to the 
 very spot on which he had stood when he kissed 
 Margaret Helm's hand. He realized, after a 
 little, that the knoll must be nearly a mile 
 away, yet so clear was the atmosphere that the 
 path which the other woman had trod was a
 
 256 The Opponents 
 
 sharply distinct scar, while on the rustic seat 
 that Margaret had left was a bit of white which 
 he knew must be Margaret's fan. 
 
 It had a potent magic that bit of white 
 and instantly turned Tunstall's course and 
 stayed the current of his mental chaos. It 
 belonged to Margaret; he had seen it in her 
 hand; he had seen it against her cheek; it 
 was as if it were a part of Margaret; it had 
 been forgotten, abandoned to the garish sun, 
 to the coming rain, to the first chance 
 wanderer who should ascend the hill. Tun- 
 stall, striding along this mountain road, bereft 
 of objective aim, of rational equilibrium, sud 
 denly gathered himself to one crystallized, be 
 calming purpose. He would hasten to the little 
 fragile thing that was Margaret Helm's; he 
 would rescue it from the sport of the weather ; 
 save it from the hand, the eyes of a stranger. 
 He would take it into his own keeping, as he had 
 longed, with all that was tender and strong in 
 him, to take Margaret herself. By such trifles 
 as this is a man, even in the emotional stress 
 of mountain solitudes, sometimes turned to 
 lower and saner levels. 
 
 Tunstall looked about him for the nearest 
 way by which he could reach the hill where
 
 The Light that Blasts 257 
 
 Margaret's fan was lying. To the left the road 
 that he had been following veered farther and 
 higher toward the ridge of the mountains which 
 cut the sheer sky. A little beyond the ledge 
 on which he was standing a narrow bridle-path 
 branched from the road and led to the right 
 and downward, through laurel and rocks, 
 toward the forest beyond the hill. This path 
 promised to take him at least in the vicinity 
 of the hill, and instantly stepping into it he 
 was swallowed up in the laurel. 
 
 Keeping to this path, he finally entered the 
 stretch of forest which he knew skirted the hill 
 he sought. Turning again to his right, he 
 walked back along the rim of a ravine at the 
 bottom of which a little brook romped. It must 
 be the same brook he had seen winding at the 
 foot of the hill that morning, and that being 
 the case, his course was along the bank, up 
 stream. 
 
 He soon reached a road, and entering on this 
 he had caught a glimpse of the hill through the 
 trees, when he came upon a woman sitting on 
 a boulder of the slope between the road and 
 the stream. 
 
 She turned her head toward him as she heard 
 his footsteps. At sight of her face Tunstall 
 17
 
 258 The Opponents 
 
 stopped abruptly, his eyes blazing out beneath 
 frowning brows. Mrs. Knowles sprang to her 
 feet, with a faint exclamation of alarm, a real 
 pallor heightening the incongruity of her arti 
 ficial coloring. 
 
 The two gazed at each other mutely, the 
 silence broken only by the gurgling brook and 
 by a stone which, dislodged by Mrs. Knowles 
 as she rose, rolled down the rocky declivity 
 into the water. 
 
 It was but a few seconds that they stared at 
 each other thus; then Tunstall turned con 
 temptuously away and walked on toward the 
 hill. 
 
 But he had not gone half a dozen yards 
 when he whirled about and went back to Mrs. 
 Knowles with determined stride, his face lower 
 ing ominously. 
 
 As he came toward her, Mrs. Knowles' skin 
 mottled with conflicting tides. She took a 
 step backward as if to retreat, but checked 
 herself and gripping her parasol drove the rod 
 into the ground, thus braced awaiting him. 
 When he halted before her, there was even a 
 flicker of defiance in her eyes. 
 
 "Why have you come here?" he demanded 
 imperiously.
 
 The Light that Blasts 259 
 
 She did not reply at once. She had not yet 
 won her struggle for self-control. But she did 
 not flinch beneath his gaze. 
 
 "Why have you come here?" Tunstall re 
 peated. 
 
 "I why have you come here, Morgan 
 Tunstall ? " she retorted, with a boldness that 
 was a little overdone. 
 
 " You are wasting time. You might as well 
 answer at once. I intend to know what you 
 are up to here." 
 
 " No, I am not wasting time." She even 
 dared a sneering little smile. " If you 
 had answered my question honestly, you 
 would have answered the one you asked 
 me." 
 
 " What do you mean?" impatiently. 
 
 " Oh ! simply but I don't know that I am 
 accountable to you or anybody else." 
 
 "Why are you here? I shall not ask you 
 again." 
 
 His face hardened into a cast which she had 
 seen once before and which struck chill to 
 her heart. Her hand went involuntarily to her 
 breast as she quickly replied, still braving it 
 out: 
 
 " I am here, Morgan Tunstall, for the same
 
 260 The Opponents 
 
 reason that you are here to be near Mar 
 garet Helm." 
 
 Tunstall leaned suddenly toward her, fury 
 distorting his countenance, but instantly drew 
 back in horror. 
 
 " Margaret Helm ! " he cried. " Then, by 
 God, you shall leave here at once ! " 
 
 There was no more bravado in Mrs. Knowles 
 now. She went to pieces as at one blow. 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" she pleaded. "Not that! 
 Have you not done enough to me already? I 
 will not go ! I will not ! You may murder 
 me, but unless you do I will stay here as long 
 as I please. Is n't there a spark of manliness 
 in you somewhere? Margaret is the only 
 being in the world I care for, and and oh, 
 I do not see her much just a few minutes, a 
 few words with her a day, sometimes in two 
 or three days. You need not fear that I shall 
 ever tell her anything indeed, indeed, I have 
 not I could not! Nothing could force me 
 to tell her!" 
 
 "Tell her?" Tunstall exclaimed in harsh 
 disgust. " She knows already. I have told 
 her everything myself. Can't even you under 
 stand that you are not to see her any more 
 that I shall not allow it?"
 
 The Light that Blasts 261 
 
 There was no fear in Mrs. Knowles now. 
 She took a swift step toward Tunstall with 
 flashing eyes and quivering voice. 
 
 " You have told her ! You have dared to 
 tell her everything about me about the 
 child ? You have told her that she that my 
 daughter ? " 
 
 Tunstall looked into the waiting, questioning 
 face blankly. 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking about," 
 he answered curtly. " I did not know you had 
 a daughter." 
 
 Her hands covered her cheeks and eyes. 
 She laughed a little, hysterically. Then she 
 sank in a huddle upon the boulder on which 
 she had been sitting when Tunstall found her, 
 and bowing her head on her knees, cried like a 
 heart-broken child. 
 
 Tunstall, mystified, contemptuous, self-con 
 temptuous, and impatient of the whole situa 
 tion, waited in silence. 
 
 Mrs. Knowles' paroxysm passed quickly. 
 She flung up her head and faced Tunstall 
 again, indignantly but tearlessly. 
 
 " You did not know that I had a daughter ! " 
 she said with cutting intonation. " You who 
 took it on yourself to prescribe my life how
 
 262 The Opponents 
 
 and where it should be spent! Where were 
 your spies? They didn't earn their hire if 
 they didn't tell you of my baby of how her 
 father slipped her from my side and sent her 
 away to Virginia that she might grow up with 
 another name, in ignorance of her own mother ; 
 of how during all the years of her childhood 
 and girlhood I never saw her, never even 
 heard of her except in an indirect way. And 
 yet now that he is dead and I am free to go 
 where I please, and I come here, not to breathe 
 a word of the secret to Margaret nothing 
 could make me do that but just to be where 
 she is and talk to her sometimes, and maybe 
 get her to talk to me sometimes, about the 
 the things that any mother has a right to know, 
 you would even forbid me that. But I tell you 
 now you can't intimidate me any longer. 
 You may do what you choose, but you can't 
 drive me away from here. Only Margaret 
 Helm herself can prevent me seeing her." 
 
 Tunstall, observing the woman closely, began 
 to question her sanity. 
 
 " This sort of raving is altogether pointless," 
 he answered coldly. " I was not aware that 
 you had a daughter, but because you have, 
 and she has not been allowed to know you, is
 
 The Light that Blasts 263 
 
 no reason why you should impose yourself on 
 Miss Helm. It is not worth while bandying 
 words about it, but I shall not permit you to 
 annoy Miss Helm any more." 
 
 Mrs. Knowles slowly rose and confronted 
 Tunstall with white lips. 
 
 " You find it hard to realize," she said in 
 low, bitter challenge, " that I shall no longer 
 look to you for permission, don't you ? And 
 you find it hard to reconcile yourself to any 
 acquaintance between me and the girl you are 
 in love with, don't you ? " 
 
 " Stop ! No more of that ! " 
 
 Tunstall did not move, but he gave his order 
 in a voice which Mrs. Knowles once would 
 have instantly heeded. 
 
 "What do you know," she went on, without 
 faltering, "of this girl you are in love with? 
 She is too good for you or any other man 
 you seem to understand that and you are 
 horrified at the thought of my even seeing her 
 or speaking to her. How are you going to 
 comfort yourself when I tell you the truth, 
 which you can easily verify for yourself, that 
 Margaret Helm that you, you, Morgan Tun 
 stall, are in love with, of all women in the 
 world, Margaret Helm, my daught "
 
 264 The Opponents 
 
 With a guttural snarl muffled in his throat 
 Tunstall leaped as if to choke Mrs. Knowles, 
 but her quick cry of terror or his own timely 
 impulse stayed his outstretched arm, and he 
 recoiled from her without touching her, rub 
 bing his arrested hand again and again in a 
 dazed way on his coat-sleeve, and muttering 
 over and over, as he turned his back on her 
 and groped his way up to the road : 
 
 " She lies, Lord God ! She lies, Lord God ! "
 
 XXI 
 
 LEVEL WITH THE EARTH 
 
 HE stumbled on deep into the forest, follow 
 ing the flow of the brook more by its sound 
 than by any guidance of his eyes, which 
 stared blankly before him. Of cognition, 
 thought, reason there was in him no consist 
 ent train. He was dominated by the murmur 
 of the brook, swelling, receding; laughing, 
 moaning; grieving, mocking; demoniacally 
 reminiscent, desolately prophetic. It was the 
 murmur of his own chaotic brain. 
 
 After nearly an hour's purposeless tracking 
 of the stream, as he stopped before a cliff 
 against whose base the brook impotently beat 
 and petulantly doubled, he was still absently 
 rubbing against his coat-sleeve the hand that 
 had almost clutched Mrs. Knowles' throat. 
 
 He looked about him with intelligence for 
 the first time. Blocking the course he had 
 been following, the cliff towered over him, its 
 seamed sides patched with mats of vines and
 
 266 The Opponents 
 
 gripped by the desperate roots of stunted 
 trees. Away from the cliff stretched the thick 
 woods through which the brook had cut its 
 course, and at his feet shot up the straight 
 trunk of a pine. Overhead in its branches, 
 softer yet more distinct than the brawl of the 
 water, was the song of the forest. Tunstall, as 
 one awakening from sleep, drew in a long 
 breath of the resinous fragrance, and lying 
 down on the carpet of pine-needles, stretched 
 prone upon his face. 
 
 Level with the earth his once fierce pas 
 sions, his strong will, his sustaining belliger 
 ence, his grasp of power, his daring new 
 desires and hopes. It was a moment of utter, 
 humble prostration of a man who had always 
 been self-sufficient; and he who had trampled 
 on the world when it was in his way knew no 
 rebellion now as he felt that his place was, as 
 here, on the ground, beneath the world's feet. 
 
 He lay there minutes, hours, motionless. 
 Gradually the tumult of his brain subsided, and 
 he began to consider, with some degree of 
 calmness, the revelation made to him by Mrs. 
 Knowles and its full significance to himself. 
 Margaret Helm the daughter of Grace Knowles ! 
 Margaret Helm, the one woman who meant his
 
 Level with the Earth 267 
 
 self-redemption, his restoration to faith, love, 
 life, the child of the one woman who had shut 
 him out from all these, of the one woman on 
 whom he had worked the extremity of his 
 vengeance ! Could the fleering tyranny of 
 Destiny, Chance, of Law, of God of what 
 ever the power that directs or neglects the 
 fortunes of men be more grimly manifested 
 than in his doom to find that the possibility of 
 all that he had missed, all that was worth 
 living for, was through the love of one who 
 owed her very existence to the woman who 
 had done most to destroy him and whom 
 in turn he had done most to destroy? Re 
 volt as he might at the thought that so 
 lovely a flower as Margaret Helm had sprung 
 from such muck, the aspect of Mrs. Knowles' 
 disclosure which now most crushed Tunstall 
 was that which bore on himself rather than 
 on Margaret. She did not know, she must 
 never know ; but he knew now, and his knowl 
 edge was a barrier between them as insuper 
 able as infinity and as lasting as eternity. Of 
 all created beings, aside from Mrs. Knowles 
 herself, Margaret Helm was the one whom he 
 could not now ask to accept his love. The 
 nobler, the worthier of the highest love she
 
 268 The Opponents 
 
 might be, the wider was he sundered from 
 her. 
 
 It did not occur to Tunstall to doubt the 
 revelation which Mrs. Knowles had made. The 
 very improbability of the thing almost its 
 inconceivability except in truth was in itself 
 instantaneous conviction. As an invention it 
 would have been so preposterous, so readily 
 disproved, that it would never have been 
 offered or even harbored. Mrs. Knowles, had 
 she been of weaker intellect than she was, could 
 not have been so foolish as to fabricate such a 
 story. Sometime, Tunstall vaguely conceded 
 himself, he might go to the Virginia town that 
 was Margaret Helm's home and make a quiet 
 investigation of the facts on his own account; 
 though there was not even a vague concession 
 that such an investigation was necessary. But 
 this point was now of no interest, however re 
 mote. He did not question Mrs. Knowles' 
 truthfulness in this instance, but if he had done 
 so the ultimate effect on himself and on his 
 future could have been little different. Whether 
 or not Margaret Helm was Mrs. Knowles' 
 daughter, the now recognized possibility that 
 he might have met and loved her daughter 
 snuffed out the light of the new world to which
 
 Level with the Earth 269 
 
 he had set his face with the coming of Mar 
 garet. And the purer, the juster, the more 
 charitable, the more lovable the more like 
 Margaret such a daughter might be, the 
 blacker the darkness in which he must be left. 
 Assuming, for idle assumption's sake, that Mar 
 garet might not be Mrs. Knowles' daughter, 
 yet in her own innocent girlhood she repre 
 sented, incarnated, all that he had irreparably 
 wronged in Mrs. Knowles' daughter, all that 
 must forever exclude him from the gladly, 
 proudly loving heart of such girlhood. 
 
 Turning these things over fitfully in his still 
 reeling mind, groping feebly on the bottom, 
 along the walls, of the abyss into which he 
 had fallen, sure, in his inward shadows, of his 
 mental results without perception of any erratic 
 indefiniteness and incompleteness of his mental 
 methods whose force a different and grosser 
 mind might have felt, Tunstall's efforts at rea 
 soning and his conclusions have not been in 
 adequately indicated here, however uneven 
 may seem their logic or their lucidity when 
 presented to the different mind in the uncom 
 promising fixity of the printed page. 
 
 When finally he turned his stiffened body 
 and slowly lifted himself to his feet, night had
 
 270 The Opponents 
 
 settled over the forest. The invigorating cool 
 ness of the high altitude was in the air. The 
 cliff was a bank of dense gloom. The thick 
 foliage seemed to gather and imprison, as 
 under a vast dome, the darkness, intensified by 
 a narrow rift here and there through which the 
 sky was visible. Above Tunstall the great 
 pine, every breath of its sighing under-song 
 now hushed, was as stirless as if hewn from 
 the rock of the cliff, loomed high beyond the 
 shades of the forest and blossomed apparently 
 with white, still mountain stars. 
 
 Tunstall peered inquisitively around him. 
 He did not know where he was, how far away 
 or in what direction was the hotel. He remem 
 bered that he had come here a long time ago, 
 when it was daylight, though he had noted no 
 more of his way or its surroundings than if it had 
 been as dark as now. The sound of the brook 
 still beat upon him the one thing that was 
 familiar ; that had not changed ; that linked the 
 night with the morning, so long passed ; that 
 seemed to have gone on since he could not 
 remember, that seemed must go on till he 
 could not forget He recalled that he had 
 followed that sound all through the woods that 
 day ; he knew that wherever the hotel was, it
 
 Level with the Earth 271 
 
 was toward the head of this brook, and that 
 therefore the stream that had led him here 
 would guide him back. 
 
 He set forth up its course. For the first 
 time in many hours he now had some definite 
 object in view : he was walking with some pur 
 pose, making his way to some place. It was a 
 poor enough object merely to get back to 
 the hotel which he now loathed but it was 
 an object, and in a degree relaxed the subjec 
 tive strain that had been upon him. Beating in 
 the darkness through the briars and underbrush 
 toward that object, was as effective to reawaken 
 his normal senses as was the object itself. 
 
 Soon and sooner than he had thought 
 possible, for it seemed to him that he had 
 traversed many leagues in descending the stream 
 that day he reached the road which, as the 
 forest began to grow thinner, he recognized as 
 the road he had turned into that morning after 
 descending the mountain bridle-path. He knew 
 that the edge of the woods, and beyond that 
 the hotel, were near now. A little further along 
 he passed the spot where he had seen Grace 
 Knowles. He felt a chill sensation as if his 
 body were contracting and shrinking into 
 himself. Involuntarily his chin fell to his
 
 272 The Opponents 
 
 sunken chest, and he automatically drew his 
 coat closer about him. It was a place of the 
 dead and damned. His own sudden death, 
 and his dead self yet down there, were vividly 
 real things. 
 
 Emerging from the woods a few minutes 
 later, the lights of the hotel shining across 
 to him smote him with a shock of repellent 
 inapposition. It was as if he were suddenly 
 thrown back on a world he had left but a mo 
 ment before, though he had lived through 
 centuries since he left it. Black as was the 
 doom back there in the forest, yet he had less 
 heart for the world of those hotel lights, and he 
 paused for a second as if actually to retrace his 
 steps. But it was only for a second, and walk 
 ing on toward the hotel, he came to the hill 
 which he had ascended that morning with Mar 
 garet Helm. He stopped again, with a re 
 pressed groan. All the beauty of the ascent, 
 the splendor of the summit, the desolation of 
 the descent rushed upon him in a flood. Then 
 again came the vision from the mountain, as he 
 had looked down on the hill and discovered 
 Margaret's fan. A returning wave of the old 
 tenderness that had hurried him down the 
 mountain-side to secure the fan swept over
 
 Level with the Earth 273 
 
 him, with a momentary pang that he had neg 
 lected, forgotten it so long in his own self- 
 concern. 
 
 With quickening steps he climbed the knoll, 
 curious, even anxious, to see whether the fan 
 were still there. He found it lying on the seat 
 where Margaret had left it, and where he had 
 seen it from the shelf of the mountain later. 
 He dropped into the seat, and taking up the 
 little fan contemplated it reflectively. Then 
 bowing his face into his hands, the fan pressed 
 against his cheek, his elbows supported by his 
 knees, he lived over the drama of the morning 
 that had been enacted on this spot, recalling 
 every word of Margaret's, every intonation, 
 every change of the sensitive face. And it was 
 only that morning that all this had happened 
 only that morning, ages and ages ago, in 
 another world, another life. 
 
 He sat up after a while, and gently placing 
 the fan in his pocket, looked across to where 
 the dim ridge of the mountains melted into the 
 star-sprinkled sky. Nearer, below him, his 
 eyes fell to the lights of the hotel, and he 
 caught on the fitful breeze of the night an 
 occasional wave of a waltz from the ball-room, 
 
 or a faint ripple of laughter from the galleries. 
 18
 
 274 The Opponents 
 
 In another hour the music had ceased, the 
 ball-room was dark, and other lights twinkled 
 in the upper story; these, too, gradually 
 died away, and when Tunstall finally rose 
 and began the descent of the hill, the building 
 was sleeping in the hush and shadow of the 
 mountains. 
 
 As he walked toward it and its outlines 
 took form before him, he looked up to the un- 
 lighted windows, and he found himself won 
 dering, as he had wondered on his arrival the 
 night before, which of those windows were 
 Margaret Helm's. He pulled his hat over his 
 eyes, with an aching stricture in his throat. 
 He was never to know, the thought crushed in 
 on him he was never to know, or to concern 
 himself to know, anything more about Marga 
 ret Helm. All that, with everything else, was 
 in the past now. 
 
 He made his way to his room and without 
 undressing threw himself across the bed. He 
 did not sleep, and as he lay there in the still 
 ness and under the same roof that covered 
 Margaret, the feeling of her hopeless nearness 
 was so poignant that he got up with the first 
 flush of dawn and went down to the hotel 
 office.
 
 Level with the Earth 275 
 
 "You have some saddle-horses here, have 
 you not?" he asked the clerk. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir ! " 
 
 " Let me look at the best of them." 
 
 " Yes, sir. You are out early." 
 
 Horses were shown him and he made a 
 selection. 
 
 " How much do you want for this one?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 " Do you mean by the hour?" 
 
 " I mean I wish to buy him." 
 
 " Oh, I could n't say, sir ! " the surprised 
 clerk stared. " I 'd have to see the manager." 
 
 " Then see him at once, please." 
 
 The manager was seen, the sale was made, 
 and Tunstall, having scribbled a conventional 
 line of leave-taking on his card for the ladies, 
 was in the saddle, with the first conscious 
 breath of the bracing morning air in his long 
 constricted lungs. In his youth a horseback 
 ride had always been his resort in time of 
 trouble, and the possibility of returning to 
 Kentucky on a good horse over the mountain 
 roads, instead of in the stuffy railroad train, no 
 sooner suggested itself ,to him than he seized it 
 as a reality. 
 
 With one fleeting glance at the still sleeping
 
 276 The Opponents 
 
 windows of the hotel, he turned his face to the 
 silvering crest of the range and galloped away. 
 The vigorous swing of the horse into the 
 majestic solitude of the morning put new 
 strength into Tunstall's own body and spirit, 
 and not once did he look back.
 
 XXII 
 
 THE MORNING OF THE CONVENTION 
 
 IT was the morning of the district convention. 
 Sidney Garrard, in his little room in the crowded 
 Bracebury hotel, was awakened at 5.30, in 
 accordance with his instructions left with the 
 clerk the night before. The boy pounded 
 noisily at the door before Garrard answered, 
 for it had been 3 o'clock when the conference 
 of his friends in the Garrard headquarters on 
 the first floor of the hotel had broken up and 
 he had climbed wearily to his bedroom. 
 
 He did not get up at once, but lay staring at 
 the slit of a window, against which a foggy 
 rain was beating. Beyond that the gray gloom 
 of the morning was impenetrable, except for a 
 few feet, within which the dripping branches of 
 a linden tree swayed and thrashed against the 
 weatherboarding of the hotel. The rain rat 
 tled in gusts on the shingle roof, the water 
 gushed and thumped in the tin gutters, and 
 near Garrard's bed there was a tap, tap on the
 
 278 The Opponents 
 
 bare floor as the slow drops fell from a wet 
 spot in the plastered ceiling. It was not a 
 cheerful beginning of the day to which Garrard 
 had looked forward so long and whose out 
 come, which he had exerted himself so strenu 
 ously to control, meant so much for him. 
 
 Nor was there any inward source of cheer in 
 Garrard, now that he had made his fight and 
 awaited the result. He lay there, in the reac 
 tion which comes after one's utmost effort has 
 been put forth without having attained the 
 result whose possibility had been his stimulus. 
 Moreover, he was in the semi-torpor that some 
 times follows an untimely awakening from sleep 
 and submerges one in a depressing revulsion 
 from the very thought of resuming the activity 
 and struggle of the waking hours which have 
 worn most on mind and body. For the time 
 Garrard, free as he usually was from morbid 
 ness, felt the oppression of the day and of 
 defeat. He did not care to get up. It did 
 not seem that he should ever care. There is 
 something to keep a man going when he is 
 making his fight, but when it is made and lost 
 a dry bed on a wet morning is about as good 
 as is left for him. 
 
 But Garrard's unfavorable political prospect,
 
 The Morning of the Convention 279 
 
 bad as that seemed, was not what oppressed 
 him most at the moment. It was his convic 
 tion that the distance between Margaret Helm 
 and himself, if not widening, at least was not 
 lessening. It was true he felt that she re 
 spected him more and liked him better than 
 she had done during the first summer of their 
 acquaintance, and it was true that since then, 
 until this year, he had seen nothing of her; 
 but he had seen enough recently to feel sure 
 that she did not yet wish to listen to what he 
 most wished to say to her. Once, indeed, he 
 had been on the verge of saying it again, just 
 before she left for the West Virginia mountains, 
 and she had so delicately yet so positively in 
 dicated to him that he would make a mistake 
 if he did speak that he had immediately de 
 sisted. While this had keenly disappointed 
 him, it had not in itself discouraged him, nor 
 would he have been so near despondency this 
 morning if he had not felt that to win he must 
 overcome an opponent more formidable than 
 Margaret herself. If his contestant had been 
 any man he knew except Morgan Tunstall, 
 Garrard would have been more hopeful. In a 
 vague sense he had somehow conceived that 
 Tunstall was his dangerous rival as long ago
 
 280 The Opponents 
 
 as the day when Margaret had first seen the 
 portrait at Tunstall Paddocks, and since Tun- 
 stall's actual appearance on the field, handi 
 capped though he might be by his unhappy 
 divorce, Garrard, while as determined and 
 aggressive in love as he was in politics, could 
 not help feeling at a distinct disadvantage in 
 opposing him. From Garrard's boyhood Tun- 
 stall had always made on him an impression 
 of power that at first had almost the effect of 
 awe, and that was not lacking later when he 
 found that it was Tunstall whom he must meet 
 as his chief antagonist in the two battles that 
 he thought most worth winning. 
 
 What other man but Tunstall, for instance, 
 could have made the political campaign that 
 he had made this summer, and yet have spent 
 most of his time with Margaret Helm? Who 
 but Tunstall, with the result of that campaign 
 so close as it was known to be, would have run 
 off to the mountains and loafed at a watering- 
 place the last days preceding the convention 
 without losing, but actually gaining, ground in 
 his political race meantime? Garrard was well 
 aware that while he was doing some of his 
 hardest campaign work these last days, Tun 
 stall had gone to Margaret. Tunstall himself
 
 The Morning of the Convention 281 
 
 before leaving had told Garrard of his destina 
 tion, and had laughingly advised him that he had 
 " better come along." Here it was the morning 
 of the convention, and Tunstall, to the conster 
 nation of some of his supporters, had not even 
 appeared at Bracebury. But Garrard had built 
 no hopes on that fact: he knew Tunstall too 
 well, and he knew too well Tunstall's strength 
 in the convention. 
 
 Tunstall had undoubtedly gained materially 
 since the Luttroll County Convention. The 
 proceedings of that body, as reported by the 
 correspondent of the Globe, had resulted in an 
 uninstructed delegation to the district conven 
 tion at Bracebury, both Tunstall and Garrard 
 being well represented by friends among the 
 delegates. So close was the race in the rest 
 of the congressional district that it was confi 
 dently assumed by the Tunstall and Garrard 
 workers alike that the vote of the Luttroll 
 County delegation in the district convention 
 would either effect a nomination or produce a 
 dead-lock. Garrard and his friends had done 
 what they could in the interval between the 
 two conventions to increase his strength in the 
 Luttroll delegation, and they believed, up to 
 the night preceding the district convention,
 
 282 The Opponents 
 
 that they had won enough of the undecided 
 delegates to give Garrard a majority of the 
 delegation. They were dumbfounded, there 
 fore, when, on the night before the district con 
 vention was to assemble, the various county 
 delegations holding separate meetings for the 
 purpose of organizing and agreeing on their 
 committeemen, the Luttroll delegation was 
 controlled on every vote by the Tunstall men, 
 who not only dictated its organization, but 
 declared that its vote should be cast as a 
 unit on all questions in the convention. This 
 programme, if carried out, would stifle every 
 Garrard man on the delegation and would in 
 effect throw all the votes of the delegation for 
 Tunstall and insure his nomination. It was an 
 old trick, and one that had been successfully 
 played many a time before by politicians less 
 shrewd than Tunstall. Garrard and his lieu 
 tenants knew, and admitted among themselves, 
 that unless this scheme could be frustrated 
 they were beaten. With every member of the 
 Luttroll delegation voting for his choice in the 
 convention, there was a bare possibility that 
 Tunstall in the end might not hold a decisive 
 number of Poindexter's following and that 
 Garrard might win; with the delegation vot-
 
 The Morning of the Convention 283 
 
 ing as a unit for Tunstall, there was no chance 
 at all for Garrard. At the conference of the 
 Garrard men immediately after the action of 
 the Luttroll delegation there was but one 
 opinion as to the course that was left them. 
 They must make their fight in the convention 
 against the " unit rule." Their only hope lay 
 in having the convention refuse to accept 
 Luttroll County's vote as a unit, but insist 
 that the delegation be polled and the votes 
 be recorded as cast by the individual dele 
 gates. It was a desperate hope, they realized, 
 for even if they should succeed in having 
 the vote of Luttroll County excluded on the 
 question of recognizing or rejecting the unit 
 rule, the probability of securing its rejection 
 by a majority of the other delegates was very 
 slight. It was clearly the Tunstall plan to 
 make sure of the nomination by the enforce 
 ment of the unit rule, and if the convention 
 should determine against its enforcement it 
 would only be because Tunstall could not con 
 trol his delegates and those of Poindexter on 
 that question. But Garrard's friends admitted 
 that there was scant encouragement in count 
 ing on Tunstall's inability to do that. Tunstall 
 had never been the man to fail in such a coup
 
 284 The Opponents 
 
 as this. It belonged essentially to the field of 
 practical politics of which he was a master. 
 
 It was true that Tunstall had not yet ap 
 peared at Bracebury. That was looked on in 
 Garrard's camp as singular, though not signifi 
 cant of any fatal disadvantage to Tunstall's side. 
 Tunstall was in the habit of doing singular 
 things in a political fight, and he had never 
 been known to lose by such tactics. Never 
 theless it was understood at Garrard's head 
 quarters that some of Tunstall's managers 
 were not as unconcerned over his absence as 
 they professed to be ; that Poindexter in par 
 ticular was secretly fuming about it ; and that 
 Dunk Peabody, having taken a few drinks to 
 allay his agitation on the subject, had become 
 so boisterously agitated that some of the diplo 
 matic Tunstall workers had to get him " dead 
 drunk " in order to quiet him. 
 
 That was the situation as developed by the 
 preceding night, and as it recurred to Garrard 
 looking out from his room on the rainy morn 
 ing of the district convention. 
 
 He lay there until he heard a clock strike 
 seven, and Hugh Letcher, pushing open the 
 door a few minutes later, found him still in 
 bed.
 
 The Morning of the Convention 285 
 
 " What ! not even up yet ? " he said in sur 
 prise. " I Ve been expecting you downstairs 
 for an hour. It's the late bird that catches 
 last year's nest." 
 
 " Oh, well, old man," Garrard replied slug 
 gishly, rising to a seat on the edge of the bed, 
 " I did n't see any reason to hurry. The game's 
 up, and I 'm tired of the whole thing." 
 
 " What's the rub? It always did upset you 
 to lose much sleep. It 's not like you not to 
 put in your hardest licks when the other fellow 
 seems surest of licking you." 
 
 "I need a good cold bath, Hugh," Garrard 
 answered, a little apologetically, as he began to 
 dress, " or a good kicking. Don't be so easy 
 with me ; try a kick or two. I '11 be down in 
 a minute and do what 's to be done. Not much, 
 is it?" 
 
 " I ran across a fellow this morning you 
 might do something with. His name is Hull 
 Dorsey Hull one of Poindexter's men. 
 He says he can't vote for you, but that it does 
 look like you ought to have a square deal and 
 be allowed your votes in the Luttroll delega 
 tion. I believe if you will have a talk with him 
 you can get him to vote against the unit rule." 
 
 "All right. Hull, did you say his name was ? "
 
 286 The Opponents 
 
 " Yes. Says he remembers you well, and has 
 always had a sort of pity for you ever since he 
 cut you out with Bessie Floyd." 
 
 " Bessie Floyd," Garrard smiled musingly. 
 " Yes, I did know a girl once named Bessie 
 Floyd. Let me see: it was the summer I 
 drove that Dictator filly. You remember her, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 "Miss Floyd?" 
 
 " That filly. She was a good one. It wasn't 
 anything to step over into Magowan County 
 behind her. Bessie Floyd lived in Magowan, 
 you know. Hull Hull yes, I believe there 
 was a chap of that name hanging around Bessie 
 that summer. So he got her, did he ? Well, I '11 
 go and inquire about her and that other little 
 matter. Anything turned up this morning? " 
 
 "Tunstall hasn't. EvenDriggs is beginning 
 to seem a little rattled, and Poindexter does n't 
 look as if he could contain himself much lon 
 ger. He is clearly getting desperate and has 
 taken to dissipating on ice-water. He ex 
 hausted the supply in the hotel office early. 
 And, oh, by the way, I Ve a letter from Flor 
 ence this morning. She said that Tunstall had 
 come up there, but remained only a day. What 
 do you think now?"
 
 The Morning of the Convention 287 
 
 " Oh, nothing ; except that Tunstall will be 
 on hand if he is needed, and that he is not 
 likely to be needed. He left his machine in 
 such good order that it will do its work with 
 out him. What racket is that downstairs, do 
 you suppose ? Hello, Nix, what 's all that 
 noise?" the last question being addressed 
 to Bob Nixon, who came into the room at 
 the moment. 
 
 " Here ! what are you fellows loafing up 
 here for? " Nixon asked. " That noise? Why, 
 don't you know? That is Dunk Peabody and 
 a few of his fellow statesmen celebrating 
 the good news : they Ve heard from Morgan 
 Tunstall." 
 
 "What have they heard?" Hugh Letcher 
 inquired. 
 
 "That he has reached Yardley on horse 
 back and will be here by the two o'clock train. 
 Dunk was at breakfast when the glad tidings 
 found him, and he immediately transferred 
 himself to the hotel office. He is now stand 
 ing on the clerk's desk, with a napkin under 
 his chin and an unfurled table-cloth in his 
 hand. That which you hear downstairs is 
 Dunk breakfasting on plutocrats."
 
 XXIII 
 
 "THE OLD HICKORY OF LUTTROLL " 
 
 THE convention met at ten o'clock, and when 
 it adjourned for dinner two hours and a half 
 later Sidney Garrard's assertion that Tunstall's 
 machine would do its work without Tunstall's 
 presence had been demonstrated. The Tun- 
 stall-Poindexter combination had held together 
 and had carried every point raised. 
 
 The first test of strength came on the ques 
 tion of temporary organization. The vote was 
 close, but the Tunstall selection for Temporary 
 Chairman won. With their power thus shown 
 and the organization and administration of the 
 convention thus seized, Tunstall's adherents re 
 garded the nomination of their man as assured, 
 while at heart Garrard's supporters, though 
 still maintaining a bold front, conceded that, 
 unless some totally unexpected development 
 should favor them, they were beaten. They 
 made an obstinate struggle against the unit 
 rule, but lost by only two or three less votes
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 289 
 
 than they lost the temporary chairmanship. 
 After that they offered no resistance to the op 
 position's motion to adjourn until two o'clock. 
 They understood that Tunstall's train was due 
 at two o'clock, but they agreed with Garrard 
 now that Tunstall's absence or presence would 
 not change the final result. The Tunstall ma 
 chine had been shown to be in perfect order. 
 
 On reassembling in the afternoon, the Chair 
 man's gavel rapping a few minutes after the 
 whistle of the two o'clock train had resounded 
 through the hall, the business before the con 
 vention was the placing in nomination of the 
 various candidates for Congress. A call of the 
 counties of the district was begun alphabetically. 
 When Bascom County was reached, Hoard, a 
 square-jawed, big-nosed young member of the 
 delegation, arose and made the nominating 
 speech for Sidney Garrard with such earnest 
 force, such a plain exposition of the methods 
 employed against him, such a telling repudia 
 tion of the " husks of Bourbonism " on which 
 the Tunstalls and Poindexters would nourish 
 the party, and such a fervid plea for the cour 
 age and sturdiness of Garrard's stand for a 
 living Democracy and for the manly repre 
 sentation of its vitality instead of a crafty reli- 
 19
 
 290 The Opponents 
 
 ance on its prejudices and spoils, that the 
 Garrard delegates were aroused to an uproar 
 ious demonstration of reddening faces, straining 
 throats, and tossing banners, which continued 
 several minutes. When this finally subsided 
 and the call of the counties was resumed, Crox- 
 ton County furnished the next speaker, who 
 seconded Garrard's nomination. It was sec 
 onded again before Hardesty, one of "the 
 Pocket " counties, was reached and " the honey- 
 lipped orator of old Hardesty " presented the 
 name of Leonidas Cox Poindexter to the con 
 vention, which was received with some honest 
 applause by the Pocket delegations, joined in 
 rather perfunctorily by the Tunstall counties. 
 
 At last Luttroll County was called, and the 
 Tunstall delegates had their cue. Luttroll was 
 to propose the name of Tunstall, the nominat 
 ing speech having been assigned to " the Old 
 Hickory of Luttroll," Shelby Letcher. When 
 the reading clerk sang out resonantly, "The 
 County of Luttroll," the Tunstall men on the 
 convention floor and platform sprang to their 
 feet with the promptness of a drill team and 
 began the din for which they had been waiting 
 their opportunity. Yells, tin horns, pounding 
 chairs and canes, made a clamor that was bar-
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 291 
 
 baric and that was maintained with a persist 
 ence betraying more method than spontaneity. 
 Flags were drawn from many places of con 
 cealment and waved overhead ; sheets of canvas 
 bearing Tunstall's portrait were hung out, and 
 streamers with Tunstall mottoes and catch 
 words were flaunted. After a while the stan 
 dards of the Tunstall counties were wrenched 
 from their places and borne aloft, while behind 
 them the Tunstall delegates fell in line and, 
 still keeping up their noise, began to march 
 and countermarch through the hall ; most con 
 spicuous among these standards being that of 
 Luttroll County, clutched in the frenzied hands 
 of Dunk Peabody as he was carried around 
 the room on the shoulders of some of his 
 colleagues. None of the usual features of the 
 modern convention demonstration was omitted. 
 The Garrard men remained in their seats 
 through it all, some of them resigned, others 
 smiling patiently, and still others jeering good- 
 naturedly. They knew that this was a part of 
 the programme which would have to run its 
 prescribed course, and that it would be timed 
 by the watch until it well exceeded the length 
 of the Garrard demonstration. They also knew 
 that it would not make a vote for Tunstall,
 
 292 The Opponents 
 
 though there was no comfort in that, as they 
 knew at the same time that it was not necessary 
 to make any more votes for Tunstall. 
 
 Finally, after the hurly-burly had been pro 
 tracted for thirteen minutes, that greeting 
 Garrard's name having lasted about five, even 
 the Tunstall men began to realize that, as one 
 of them expressed it to another, there was " a 
 cog loose somewhere." There were now gaps 
 in the " enthusiasm," as if the enthusiasts felt 
 that they had done their part and were dis 
 posed to subside in order that the next part, 
 which was not theirs, should be done. They 
 began to look around for Shelby Letcher, to 
 note that he was not in any of the seats assigned 
 to the Luttroll delegation, and that he was not 
 to be discovered on the platform or elsewhere 
 in the hall. Even the Chairman now banged 
 the table and turned to see if the expected 
 speaker had yet reached the stage. Cries of 
 " Letcher ! " soon dominated the other noises in 
 the building, and some of the Garrard men, 
 though not understanding the hitch, were laugh 
 ing outright. 
 
 At last there was a sudden, genuine cheer 
 from the Tunstall followers, as the gaunt form 
 of Shelby Letcher was seen to emerge from
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 293 
 
 the wings of the stage and with awkward slow 
 ness make its way to the table by the Chair 
 man's side. 
 
 Standing there until the din was stilled, " the 
 Old Hickory of Luttroll " began to speak in a 
 harsh but unstrained voice that carried every 
 syllable to all parts of the auditorium : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman and Fellow Democrats," he 
 said, " I must inform you at the outset that I 
 am here to make a very different speech from 
 that which you expected from me, and which 
 you had a right to expect from me. Just how 
 and why I am not to make the speech I intended 
 to make and am to make the speech I shall try 
 to make, I hardly know myself. It has all come 
 about so suddenly, and I am so far at this 
 moment from fully grasping the entire situa 
 tion in all its cause and effect, that I seriously 
 doubt if I should not have acquitted myself 
 with more credit by remaining mute in my seat. 
 But, gentlemen, I am a Democrat who never 
 shirks a duty to his party, and in the brief time 
 I have had to ponder on that duty and the 
 imperfect light I have had in which to find it, I 
 believe that it is to the interest of the Democ 
 racy of this district that I should say to you 
 what I stand here now to say.
 
 294 The Opponents 
 
 " Gentlemen, when I came to this convention 
 this afternoon I came with the expectation, 
 which I have since been compelled to abandon, 
 of placing in nomination for the office of Rep 
 resentative in Congress from this district the 
 name of the man I believed, and still believe, to 
 be the choice of a majority of the members of 
 our party." (At this there was a subdued com 
 motion throughout the hall, growing louder as 
 feet were shuffled and delegates pressed nearer 
 the rostrum, while their questions as they asked 
 one another what it meant were mingled with 
 ejaculations which were not chosen with a view 
 to elegance of expression.) 
 
 " Be patient, all of you, if you would hear 
 what I have undertaken to tell you," the old 
 gentleman resumed, extending a hand and a 
 long arm over his auditors authoritatively. 
 " Fellow Democrats, without beating around 
 the bush I will make a long story short by say 
 ing to you that, for personal reasons of his own, 
 which, whatever they may be, we must concede 
 to be, in the judgment of him whom they most 
 concern, good and sufficient, the man who I 
 am morally certain would have been declared 
 their nominee by a majority of the delegates to 
 this convention has changed his mind and has
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 295 
 
 determined to retire from politics." (There 
 was another commotion here, more vigorous 
 than the first, but shorter, in the convention's 
 eagerness to lose no word of the speaker's.) 
 " So it is my unwelcome function, Democrats 
 of Kentucky, to come before you at the urgent 
 and repeated solicitation of the Hon. Morgan 
 Tunstall himself and, in his behalf, not only to 
 inform you that he refuses to allow his own 
 name to be placed in nomination, but that it is 
 his desire that, instead, I shall second the nom 
 ination of the Hon. Sidney Garrard." 
 
 The effect of this announcement, according 
 to the report published in next morning's Globe, 
 was " hard to describe. Consternation was 
 plainly written in the ranks of the Tunstall 
 delegates, whose tense faces, lifted upward to 
 the aged speaker, broke into an agitated sea of 
 dismay, perplexity, incredulity, disgust, aston 
 ishment, and anger, from which sounded sharp 
 exclamations, muttered oaths, and here and 
 there a groan and an unmistaken hiss. The 
 Garrard forces were scarcely less a study. As 
 they took in the significance of the thunderclap 
 from the stage, they responded with a sponta 
 neous cheer, but it was short and seemed to die 
 away in doubt. They looked into one another's
 
 296 The Opponents 
 
 eyes and found not answers to their question 
 ing, but questions similar to their own What 
 does it mean? Is it a trick? The most vivid 
 and violent part of the scene, however, was in 
 that portion of the hall occupied by the dele 
 gates from the Pocket. These were all sup 
 porters of Poindexter, and they did not try to 
 conceal their fury at what they considered Tun- 
 stall's betrayal of his ally from the Pocket. 
 Every man of them was on his feet and his 
 feet usually on the bottom of the chair on which 
 he had been sitting and with distorted face 
 was hooting and howling out his passion. The 
 air was thick with doubled fists and cries of 
 ' Take him out ! ' ' Traitor ! ' ' What did he 
 get?'" etc. 
 
 But it was not long before the tumult sub 
 sided, at least temporarily. Shelby Letcher 
 was waiting to proceed with his remarks, and 
 curiosity to hear what else remained to be 
 said did far more to restore order than the 
 energetic efforts of the Chairman did. 
 
 " I am here," Mr. Letcher went on, his voice 
 seeming to have gathered some of the excite 
 ment with which the hall was now charged, 
 " unwillingly to fulfil the commission that has 
 been imposed upon me. In withdrawing the
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 297 
 
 name of Mr. Tunstall from this canvass, I speak 
 for him alone ; in seconding the nomination of 
 Mr. Garrard, I speak for Mr. Tunstall and for 
 myself. Mr. Tunstall wishes me to assure you 
 that he regrets that the campaign proceeded 
 so far before he determined to quit it ; that he 
 is grateful for the loyal support he has received 
 at the hands of so many of you, and that 
 he deplores the wasted exertions which he in 
 duced you to put forth so generously in his 
 behalf; nevertheless, he particularly wishes me 
 to assure you that his decision to go no further 
 in the matter is absolute and final. And know 
 ing the man as I do, I can further assure you 
 if it were necessary to make any such assurance 
 to those knowing him as you do that there 
 can be not the remotest question of his 
 sincerity. 
 
 " So much for that part of my duty. I have 
 discharged it with reluctance, for I believe 
 that Morgan Tunstall is the ablest leader of 
 our party in Kentucky, and I earnestly de 
 sired his election to Congress this fall, both 
 because it would have been for the signal 
 honor and advantage of our district to have 
 such a representative at Washington and be 
 cause I wished to see him take the place in the
 
 298 The Opponents 
 
 direction of our national legislation and in the 
 councils of our national party to which his 
 commanding gifts and accomplishments so 
 pre-eminently entitle him. 
 
 " The second part of my duty the indorse 
 ment of the candidacy of the Hon. Sidney 
 Garrard I also discharge with some reluct 
 ance. It is well known that, neighbor and 
 friend as he is, even almost as a son, it was 
 with pain that I have withheld my support 
 from him in this campaign. Frankly I thought 
 he could wait ; that it would be better for him 
 if he had to wait. All of us have our short 
 comings, and his are to be charged to the im 
 pulsiveness of an honest and courageous youth. 
 He will get over his youth, my friends, and 
 with his courage and honesty left him, added 
 to the soberer temperament and the broaden 
 ing experience of his increasing years, he will 
 yet make an all-wool Democrat. As you are 
 aware, there are some things in his record 
 which I do not like, but I have suggested to 
 you their explanation, and we surely can well 
 afford to bear with a young Democrat whose 
 divergence from the plummet line of the Fathers 
 is due to his effort to stand so straight that he 
 is sometimes a little sway-backed. With all
 
 "The Old Hickory of Luttroll" 299 
 
 his faults I believe, and the great chieftain 
 whose name I have just withdrawn from this 
 convention believes with me, that Sidney Gar- 
 rard is the most available man for the party 
 now to unite on. At this stage of threatening 
 party break-up and realignment in Kentucky," 
 he continued, with oratorical confusion of 
 metaphors, " we cannot afford to invite need 
 less dissensions. Three men have made this 
 contest for Congress. One of them has volun 
 tarily withdrawn. Two remain in the race. 
 Our choice should be one of these. It would 
 be folly to inspire the resentment of their ad 
 herents by going beyond these two, at this late 
 hour, to select a candidate who has known 
 nothing of the brunt of the battle. No man in 
 this district has stancher, more zealous friends 
 than Sidney Garrard. Shall we wantonly slap 
 them in the face now after his chief competi 
 tor has retired in his favor by going into the 
 woods and bushes for a dark horse? That 
 would be a poor way to unite the party, when 
 Morgan Tunstall's action really leaves no ob 
 stacle to party union. Gentlemen, you must 
 know that the nominee of this convention will 
 be Garrard or Poindexter. I know, and you 
 must know, that, as by far the stronger candi-
 
 300 The Opponents 
 
 date, rallying to his standard even with Tunstall 
 in the field almost enough delegates to nomi 
 nate him, Garrard will be that nominee. Be 
 cause, therefore, Morgan Tunstall, who had 
 practically won this nomination, thinks it should 
 go to this gallant young leader ; because by his 
 remarkable fight against stupendous odds he is 
 entitled to this honor over any opponent that 
 might now seek to lift the lance dropped by 
 the peerless Tunstall ; because he is clearly the 
 second choice of the Democrats of this district, 
 who are not to have their first choice ; because 
 he is the son of my county, whose heretofore 
 divided allegiance now centres on him ; because 
 he is my neighbor and one of my boys whom, 
 with God's help and your help, I intend to live 
 to make as rock-ribbed a Democrat as I am 
 myself; and most important of all, because he 
 is now the one man in this district who can 
 best insure the harmony and invincibility of 
 our glorious old party in this campaign, I 
 second the nomination of Sidney Garrard, of 
 the county of Luttroll."
 
 XXIV 
 
 MORGAN TUNSTALL DECIDES HIS FUTURE 
 
 TUNSTALL'S decision to withdraw from the 
 race and throw his influence to Garrard had 
 been made only that morning, on the train from 
 Yardley to Bracebury. His horseback ride 
 through the mountains had been a distraction 
 from thought. The rough and often perilous 
 roads, the changing scene, the almost continu 
 ous objective demands on his mind, the deep 
 sleep in some humble cabin after a long day in 
 the saddle, left him little opportunity for re 
 flection, even had he desired it. But he had 
 no such desire. His one purpose was to 
 escape reflection, to get away from the spot, 
 and all its associations, where the blow had 
 fallen upon him. No mind could stand many 
 days such as that through which he had passed 
 after his morning with Margaret Helm and 
 Grace Knowles. He fled, as a wounded ani 
 mal flees, homeward ; though but for his knowl 
 edge that there was unfinished work for him
 
 302 The Opponents 
 
 in that direction, he soon might have drifted 
 anywhere, instead of keeping to his course. 
 The one definite conception that took shape 
 in his mind, when there was room there for 
 anything beyond the agony and despair of 
 those first hours after he had been struck down, 
 was that back in Kentucky he had set his hand 
 to work which yet remained to be completed, 
 and to that he turned like an automaton. 
 There was nothing else for him to turn to. 
 
 Yet, when he had put the mountains behind 
 him and had reached the rolling meadows of 
 his own county, every familiar landmark seemed 
 to oppress him with a new distaste for the 
 work to which he was going back. When he 
 had left for the mountains, that work had been 
 infused with his own life blood, and he had 
 given to it the best of his vitality because by 
 it he would lay a stepping-stone into the new 
 world that Margaret Helm's coming had 
 opened before him. But now, returning to 
 take up his work again, he returned to take up 
 an empty, purposeless thing, a thing, indeed, 
 that was worse than purposeless, for its sole 
 power was to remind him of the purpose with 
 which he had once vivified it. There was no 
 longer anything in it for him, not even the
 
 Tunstall Decides his Future 303 
 
 solace of work for work's sake, as there had 
 been before he knew Margaret Helm. On the 
 contrary, as he approached the point of re 
 suming his political campaign, his anticipation 
 was not only utterly devoid of interest, but was 
 sickened with loathing and revulsion. His in 
 clination was to turn and flee from Bracebury, 
 as he had fled from the mountains of West 
 Virginia. 
 
 He made his way, therefore, to Bracebury 
 leisurely, with no effort to reach the town be 
 fore the day on which the convention was to 
 meet. He did not even communicate with his 
 friends until the morning of that day, on his 
 arrival at Yardley. It was not until he had left 
 his horse at Yardley and had taken the train for 
 Bracebury that the full repellent force of the 
 work to which he was speeding bore on him 
 overpoweringly. 
 
 Then first came the suggestion of relief. He 
 played with it a little, even smiled at it once, 
 held it away from him, drew it back ; con 
 templated it from various sides : self-indul- 
 gently, as if he recognized himself as a child 
 with a toy, with profound concentration a 
 few seconds later. 
 
 Within ten minutes after the idea had been
 
 304 The Opponents 
 
 born he had accepted it as a finality and had 
 decided his future. He would withdraw from 
 the campaign for Congress. He would quit 
 politics. He would turn his back upon the 
 whole hollow, degrading business. 
 
 He settled back in his seat as if for the first 
 time he had found a position of comfort. 
 Some might say, he reflected, that he owed it 
 to his friends to push his candidacy to the 
 end, especially as he was practically sure to 
 win, but it was more his fight than his friends', 
 and in this instance he owed less to them than 
 to himself. He would not sacrifice himself to 
 the interest of others, particularly when that 
 interest was mainly sentimental. Poindexter 
 was the only one who might feel that he had 
 real cause of complaint. He had promised to 
 use his influence as a Congressman to secure 
 the office of Internal Revenue Collector for 
 Poindexter. Well, he would not be Congress 
 man and that would count for much but 
 he could still use what influence he might have 
 for Poindexter. If that should not satisfy 
 Poindexter, then to the devil with Poindexter. 
 He should have had nothing to do with Poin 
 dexter, anyway. He was in no mood now to 
 consult the code of " honor among thieves."
 
 Tunstall Decides his Future 305 
 
 He would not only withdraw, but he would 
 swing his following to Sidney Garrard and insure 
 his nomination. Some of Tunstall's delegates, 
 he was aware, might mutiny, but that would 
 not matter. Garrard already lacked but a few 
 votes of the number necessary to nominate, 
 and it would be easy for Tunstall to throw 
 those to him. Indeed, Tunstall admitted that 
 with himself out of the contest it would be 
 almost impossible to prevent enough of his 
 supporters going over to Garrard to nominate 
 him, in preference to any other man in the dis 
 trict that could be pitted against him. 
 
 Let it not be inferred that in determining to 
 nominate his rival in love as well as in politics 
 Tunstall was impelled by any motive of romantic 
 self-abnegation and heroism. He acquitted 
 himself of any such incentive. For one thing, 
 he was no longer a rival of Sidney Garrard 
 for the love of Margaret Helm. Margaret was 
 no longer a possibility to Tunstall. If she 
 had been, he would never have surrendered 
 to any one an inch that could have helped 
 to advance himself in her favor. More than 
 that, Tunstall realized, without compunction, 
 that if Margaret Helm had been still a pos 
 sibility, and he had been compelled to retire
 
 306 The Opponents 
 
 from the Congressional race, he would not have 
 been equal to bestowing on any lover of Mar 
 garet's an honor that might have strengthened 
 his suit. Tunstall was human, and he was 
 honest with himself. 
 
 Tunstall liked Sidney Garrard. He even 
 admired him for the things which he some 
 times laughed at to Garrard's face. With his 
 own abandonment of politics, and with Mar 
 garet Helm out of consideration, Tunstall 
 wished to see, even to help, Garrard attain 
 his ambition. Besides, some day, in all prob 
 ability, Margaret Helm would be Garrard's 
 wife, and it was much to feel that in further 
 ing the fortunes of Garrard he would be doing 
 something for Margaret Helm. But it was at 
 this point that the human nerve in the man 
 was to ache most sharply. He would have 
 done anything for Margaret's happiness, and 
 yet when it came to doing it through help 
 ing one who was perhaps to take the place in 
 her heart that he himself had hoped to hold, 
 Tunstall shrank in acute, though momentary 
 anguish and rebellion. No man ever loved a 
 woman if he was superior to this feeling of 
 rebellion at the thought of any other man in 
 her arms.
 
 Tunstall Decides his Future 307 
 
 At the first station where the train stopped 
 after Tunstall had made his decision he went 
 out and telegraphed John W. Driggs at Brace- 
 bury: " Don tallow a ballot before I arrive, at 
 two o'clock" Then he returned to his seat in 
 the car and pondered the plan to be put in 
 operation when he should reach Bracebury. 
 
 Two methods of action occurred to him. 
 One was simply to withdraw, in favor of Garrard, 
 and at the same time quietly transfer enough 
 of his following to Garrard to make sure his 
 nomination. This course, sprung so abruptly 
 on the convention, would be somewhat theatric, 
 and would impress some of his adherents with 
 the idea that in failing to take them into his 
 confidence he had not treated them with suffi 
 cient consideration. It would also perhaps 
 alienate some of them from him beyond the 
 limits within which they could be controlled by 
 his organization. This, however, as already 
 suggested, would be immaterial. So few ad 
 ditional votes were needed by Garrard that 
 Tunstall knew that more than the necessary 
 number could be counted on. For the possi 
 ble weakening, or even collapse, of his own 
 organization Tunstall cared nothing. Quitting 
 politics entirely and permanently, he had no
 
 308 The Opponents 
 
 further use for an organization. He would 
 have preferred, out of regard for his support 
 ers, not to wait thus till the last hour before 
 confiding to them his decision to withdraw, 
 but it was not worth while to concern himself 
 about that. He could not have confided to 
 them his decision before he had made it. As 
 for the theatric aspect of the proceeding, he 
 did not give that a second thought. Of two 
 effective means of accomplishing an end, one 
 theatric and the other not, the politician usually 
 chooses the theatric. 
 
 The second method of action, which Tun- 
 stall reviewed briefly, was more indirect, and 
 would have appealed to him more strongly if 
 he had not lost all interest in making an adroit 
 political play merely for the love of the play. 
 It contemplated that he should not openly with 
 draw from the contest, but that ostensibly he 
 should fight it out. The balloting would begin, 
 and the deadlock between Garrard, Poindexter, 
 and himself would result. This would be pro 
 tracted by Tunstall until it had the appearance 
 of a stubborn struggle, and finally, atTunstall's 
 secret dictation, enough of Poindexter's dele 
 gates should go over to Garrard to nominate 
 him, instead of carrying out the terms of the
 
 Tunstall Decides his Future 309 
 
 deal between Poindexter and Tunstall to go 
 over to Tunstall. The consequence would be 
 the nomination of Garrard, no less at the in 
 stance of Tunstall by this method of procedure 
 than by the more direct one. Moreover, it 
 would have the merit of leaving the public and 
 Garrard himself under the impression that he 
 had won by his own efforts, after the contest 
 had been fought out on the ground of Tunstall's 
 choosing. Victory coming to Garrard thus 
 would no doubt be more gratifying to him than 
 if he knew it to be owed to Tunstall's unex 
 pected and unexplained generosity. But that 
 consideration had no weight with Tunstall ; or 
 if it had, it was to turn him against it. Even 
 if he had a heart now for conducting such a 
 tactical manoeuvre as this, he was so human as 
 to prefer, if it came to analyses of motives, that 
 in the future years, with their possibilities of 
 what Sidney Garrard might be to Margaret 
 Helm, she should not be wholly ignorant of 
 what Morgan Tunstall, who she would know 
 had loved her also, had done in Sidney's be 
 half. Perhaps she would even understand that 
 he had done it more on her account than on 
 Sidney's.
 
 XXV 
 
 MORGAN TUNSTALL CARRIES OUT HIS 
 DECISION 
 
 WHEN his train arrived at Bracebury Tunstall 
 was met at the station by John W. Driggs and 
 two or three others of his lieutenants. Driving 
 to the town hall, they found that the convention 
 had reassembled but a few minutes before, and 
 Hoard was just beginning his speech placing 
 Garrard in nomination. Tunstall went to one 
 of the little rooms back of the stage, and send 
 ing for half a dozen of his leaders notified them 
 of his decision to withdraw and throw his influ 
 ence to Garrard. They were astonished, but 
 had little to say. They knew Tunstall well 
 enough to realize that it would be useless for 
 them to say anything. They could not fathom 
 his motives, nor did he explain, beyond his 
 answer to one who burst out with : 
 
 " Holy Moses, Mr. Tunstall, what does it all 
 mean ? "
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 3 1 1 
 
 " That I have changed my mind," he replied, 
 " and am done with politics. I am sorry if I 
 seem to have imposed upon you, gentlemen, 
 but I had no such purpose. Up to an hour 
 ago I had fully intended to keep on with the 
 thing." 
 
 Two or three of them laughed faintly and 
 spoke meekly. 
 
 " Well, I reckon, if you can stand it, we can," 
 said one of these. 
 
 Two or three others darkened sullenly, but 
 made no open protest. John W. Driggs, with 
 his thumbs under his suspenders, looked from 
 one to another and remarked with equable 
 resignation : 
 
 " Well, boys, the old man always knows what 
 he 's about." 
 
 Squire Breckinridge Bodine's eyes batted 
 weakly, and he fanned himself nervously with 
 his hat, but his only utterance was a short- 
 breathed 
 
 " Lord 'a' mercy ! " 
 
 The one man who openly rebelled against 
 Tunstall's announcement was Shelby Letcher. 
 Leaning forward and shaking his long finger in 
 Tunstall's face, he served notice : 
 
 " It 's preposterous, Morgan Tunstall, and
 
 3 1 2 The Opponents 
 
 we are not going to submit to it. You can't 
 trifle with us this way. It's too late to talk 
 about withdrawing when you are in an hour of 
 a sure nomination, and I hereby notify you, if 
 you attempt it, I '11 go before the convention 
 and say on the floor what I 'm saying here, and, 
 by the Eternal, we '11 nominate you in spite of 
 yourself! " 
 
 " And I '11 go before the convention," Tun- 
 stall smiled in reply, " and tell them flatly that 
 I '11 refuse a nomination if given me. Instead 
 of making the speech you threaten to make, 
 Mr. Letcher, I urge you, as a friend of mine, a 
 friend of Sidney Garrard, and above all a friend 
 of the Democratic party, to go before the con 
 vention and not only withdraw my name but 
 second the nomination of Sidney Garrard. 
 You are the one man to make that speech. 
 And you might as well, for Sidney is bound to 
 be nominated, anyway." 
 
 " I '11 see you in Jericho first, sir ! " 
 Nevertheless, after a ten minutes' argument, 
 during which Tunstall pressed most of the 
 points which Mr. Letcher subsequently re 
 peated as his own in the speech reported in 
 preceding pages, the old gentleman reluctantly 
 surrendered.
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 3 1 3 
 
 In the convention hall the clamor was now 
 tumultuous. The county of Luttroll had been 
 called, the demonstration in favor of Tunstall 
 was in progress, and the cries for Letcher had 
 already reached the old war-horse, who with 
 head uplifted was drinking in the sound. 
 
 " Now seems to be your time, Mr. Letcher," 
 Tunstall smiled. 
 
 The veteran buttoned his coat and cleared 
 his voice, as he went to the door. 
 
 " I am ready for them, sir," he replied, leav 
 ing the room and crossing over to the wings, 
 whence he stepped out on the stage. 
 
 Most of the others who had been in the 
 room were now, at Tunstall's suggestion, join 
 ing their delegations on the floor of the con 
 vention, in order better to assert leadership 
 of them in the new and unforeseen turn of the 
 situation. Tunstall, accompanied by Driggs, 
 had just stepped through the door to follow 
 Shelby Letcher toward the stage when Poin- 
 dexter, purple and panting, rushed up. 
 
 " What is this damned rot I hear, Tunstall, 
 about your fluking and throwing the race to 
 Garrard ? " he demanded. 
 
 Tunstall paused. " I suppose that is about 
 the size of it, Poindexter," he replied. " I Ve
 
 314 The Opponents 
 
 concluded to quit and do what I can to nom 
 inate Garrard. I sent for you half an hour ago 
 to tell you this, along with the other boys, but 
 you were not to be found." 
 
 " And you mean to stand here and tell 
 me to my face that you have thrown me 
 down?" 
 
 " Well, Poindexter, I 'm sorry to disappoint 
 you, but I confess that you have not entered 
 into the considerations that have governed me 
 in this matter." 
 
 " In short, sir, you openly acknowledge that 
 you have repudiated your your agreement 
 with me ! " 
 
 " Not so extreme as that, Poindexter. My 
 agreement was that if you would co-operate 
 with me in this canvass, when I got to Con 
 gress I would recommend and urge your ap 
 pointment as Collector for this district I 
 speak freely in the presence of John here, 
 for he knows of the arrangement already. 
 But I am not going to Congress; though 
 I will still use my influence to get you the 
 appointment, if you think it will do you any 
 good." 
 
 " Good ! Hell ! What good can anybody's 
 influence do me if the man who is going to
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 315 
 
 Congress is Sidney Garrard? He'll name the 
 Collector, and you know perfectly well he 'd 
 no more think of naming me than he would of 
 naming John W. Driggs there himself." 
 
 " Well, I 'm sorry things have got into this 
 mess, Poindexter," Tunstall said, taking a step 
 forward. " We '11 talk it over later this after 
 noon. Come on: Mr. Letcher is making a 
 speech, and we don't want to lose that." 
 
 Tunstall started toward the wings of the 
 stage, but Poindexter did not move. 
 
 " We will talk it over later," he called after 
 him ; " and I give you fair warning, Morgan 
 Tunstall, that if you go on with this welching 
 business we '11 have a settlement as well as a 
 talk. There 's yet time for you to stop this 
 sell-out, and, by God ! you 'd better pull in 
 your ropes before it is too late, if you don't 
 want them to stretch your own neck." 
 
 Tunstall, paying no attention to this, went on 
 and stood in the wings, where he could see and 
 hear Shelby Letcher without being seen him 
 self by those in the auditorium; while Poin 
 dexter hastened down to that portion of the 
 convention hall assigned to the delegates from 
 the Pocket. 
 
 Tunstall missed nothing of the effect
 
 316 The Opponents 
 
 already indicated in this chronicle of Shelby 
 Letcher's speech on the delegates. He noted 
 their commotion following the first intimation 
 that his name was not to be placed before 
 them ; the suspense with which they awaited 
 a fuller revelation ; the dismay among his fol 
 lowers on the definite announcement of his 
 withdrawal and of his desire that Sidney Gar- 
 rard receive the nomination ; the bewilderment 
 of the Garrard forces, and the rage of Poin- 
 dexter's men from the Pocket. He smiled 
 more than once at the Old Hickory's patronage 
 and egotism in seconding the nomination of 
 Sidney Garrard, and he observed that these were 
 not lost entirely on the audience, but to some 
 extent relaxed the tension produced on it by 
 the first half of the speech. As Shelby Letcher 
 finished his peroration and walked to the back 
 of the stage to a seat, there were two seconds 
 of dead silence in the hall. Then there were 
 hand-clappings on the stage, followed at length 
 by a rousing cheer by the Garrard delegates, 
 led by Nelse Tigert. Tunstall's supporters 
 were motionless and silent in their seats, with a 
 few exceptions here and there who sang out with 
 forced cheerfulness, " What 's the matter with 
 Tunstall? He's all right! " or, " Hurrah for
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 317 
 
 Tunstall and Garrard ! " Over in the corner 
 of the representatives of the Pocket, where such 
 an outburst of indignation had at one time 
 interrupted Shelby Letcher's speech, a more 
 methodical expression of contempt was now 
 audible and visible. Groans and taunts were 
 measured out in chorus. References, direct 
 and indirect, to Tunstall were greeted with 
 sarcastic exclamations and derisive laughter. 
 Above the concerted clamor individual voices 
 shouted: "How much did he get?" "Mor 
 gan T. C. O. D. ! " " Everybody step up 
 and get a transfer check ! " " And Tun, he got 
 de mon ! " " Stand up, Tunny, and tell us all 
 about it ! " " Yes, come out and show your 
 self, Tunny ! " Soon this last phrase was taken 
 up in chorus, and the whole Pocket crowd sang 
 out with insistent reiteration, " Come out and 
 show yourself, Tunny." 
 
 It was not long before this provoked the 
 other delegates to counter demonstrations. 
 The Garrard men now cheered lustily for Tun 
 stall, while most of Tunstall's original sup 
 porters, who up to this point had been rather 
 quiet, jumped to their feet and fiercely yelled 
 back the name of their leader to the insults of 
 the Pocket. This continued, without sign of
 
 318 The Opponents 
 
 abatement, for two or three minutes, when the 
 Chairman, looking around and seeing Tunstall 
 standing in the wings calmly surveying the 
 turbulent scene, got up and crossed over to 
 him. 
 
 " Morgan," he said, " they seem determined 
 to have you, and I believe myself a few words 
 from you would do more than anything else to 
 end this." 
 
 " I was just thinking that perhaps I ought to 
 say something," Tunstall replied. 
 
 The Chairman took him by the arm, and as 
 they walked down to the front of the stage the 
 auditorium resounded with shout upon shout 
 that completely submerged the noise of the 
 Pocket delegates. 
 
 Tunstall stood waiting for the tumult to 
 subside. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the con 
 vention," he finally began ; but he got no 
 farther. The Pocket delegates, standing in 
 their chairs, started a determined effort to cry 
 him down. They would not hear him, and did 
 not propose that anybody else in the hall 
 should hear him. Their mouths were wide 
 with hoots, howls, cat-calls, and varied objurga 
 tions. The air was raucous with tin horns.
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 3 1 9 
 
 " Take him out ! " " Sit down ! " " Go hang 
 yourself! " were among the distinguishable 
 words to which the horns furnished accompani 
 ment. Upon the orchestra railing, not six feet 
 away from Tunstall, Dunk Peabody had climbed, 
 and with his coat under his arm and his hat in 
 his hand describing many fantastic gyrations, he 
 was catching up and passing on, as he bobbed 
 about on his narrow footing, every phrase that 
 sounded like an intended insult to Tunstall. 
 The Chairman, energetically pounding the table 
 with his gavel and violently commanding order, 
 only added to the disorder. 
 
 Tunstall suspended all effort to speak. He 
 could not have been heard by even Dunk Pea- 
 body. He remained standing, patiently wait 
 ing his opportunity, his purpose not to be 
 driven plainly indicated in posture and feature. 
 
 It continued thus for ten, twenty, forty min 
 utes. Twice again, as the din in the Pocket 
 died away, apparently from exhaustion, Tun 
 stall essayed to speak, only to desist as the 
 protestations burst forth with renewed violence. 
 After the last of these attempts he had settled 
 back against the Chairman's table, supporting 
 himself against its edge, in an attitude that so 
 clearly implied his determination to make the
 
 320 The Opponents 
 
 resistance of the tactics employed against him 
 a matter of physical endurance, that his friends 
 and those of Garrard among the delegates gave 
 him a ripping cheer. They were powerless to 
 do more in such an emergency, except to 
 throw the disorderly delegates bodily out of 
 the hall. Some of their hot-heads urged this 
 course, but were discountenanced by the more 
 diplomatic leaders, who had an eye to " har 
 monizing" the party after the nomination 
 should have been made. 
 
 Whether the Pocket men were impressed by 
 Tunstall's evident purpose not to yield, or 
 whether their exertions finally wearied them 
 beyond longer spirited perseverance in their 
 course, Tunstall, in the end, had his way. It 
 may be that the incident of Dunk Peabody's 
 disappearance from his place on the orchestra 
 railing had something to do with the humor of 
 the Pocket which gave Tunstall his chance. 
 Dunk certainly showed no signs of wearying ; 
 on the contrary, he seemed to grow more agile 
 and more vociferous the longer he remained at 
 his conspicuous post of service. Finally, as he 
 was swirling his coat on high in launching a 
 sweeping imprecation upon "plutycrats and 
 their minions," the big form of Nelse Tigert
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 321 
 
 made its way to the railing and clasping Dunk 
 around the waist, pulled him down. 
 
 " Come on, Dunk," Nelse said ; " you Ve 
 got a seat in the Luttroll delegation, an' we 're 
 lonesome without you." 
 
 As Nelse marched down the aisle with Dunk 
 tucked under one arm, Dunk's coat, hat, and 
 tongue frantically active at one end and his 
 feet at the other, his progress was greeted by 
 the first general laughter of the session, in 
 which even the Pocket delegates joined. It is 
 true that one of these advanced hastily toward 
 Nelse, as he reached the Luttroll section of 
 seats, with the apparent design of rescuing 
 Nelse's captive, but Nelse, grinning, turned at 
 bay and assuming a position as if to defend 
 himself, with Dunk Peabody's rear extremities 
 trained on the enemy, gave warning: 
 
 " Better stand back there, podner ; you 're 
 liable to git kicked by Dunk, an' Dunk is a 
 powerful bad kicker when he 's good an' riled 
 by the plutycrats." 
 
 Innocent reader, do you cavil at anything 
 set down in these pages as a libel on the dig 
 nity and wisdom with which the sovereignty 
 of our free people asserts itself ? Then, if you 
 would remain innocent, seek no information of 
 
 21
 
 322 The Opponents 
 
 those who know how the conventions that make 
 our legislators, executives, and judges are often 
 conducted. 
 
 Nelse Tigert's ludicrous coup and his novel 
 method of defence scored such a hit with the 
 overwrought delegates that any more strenu 
 ous purpose seemed for the moment forgotten, 
 or at any rate minimized, and the laughter that 
 followed the incident was still rippling on the 
 outskirts of the crowd when Tunstall again 
 began his remarks, with so little interruption 
 now that he took no notice of it. 
 
 He did not say much, but what he said, and 
 the manner of his saying it, left no doubt of 
 his sincerity and firmness. With terse incisive- 
 ness he repeated to the convention substan 
 tially what he had told his friends in the little 
 room back of the stage. He had made up his 
 mind to quit politics; he could not accept a 
 nomination or election ; he was sorry that he 
 had not formed this resolution much sooner; 
 he was sure that Sidney Garrard would make 
 them a better Congressman ; he was honest in 
 his conviction that Garrard's nomination, with 
 the objects both of securing a progressive and 
 fearless Representative and of promoting the 
 interests of the party in the district, was now
 
 Tunstall Carries out his Decision 323 
 
 the best nomination that could be made; he 
 was grateful to those who had stood by him, 
 and regretful, only in consideration of them, to 
 take the action he did ; to those who impugned 
 his motives, he had nothing to say. 
 
 The speech seemed to impress the conven 
 tion as a finality. It was followed by little 
 manifestation of approval or disapproval, the 
 delegates settling back in their seats in quiet 
 readiness for the order of business. 
 
 The call of the counties was concluded with 
 out any additional speeches, and the long- 
 awaited ballot began. Though the Tunstall 
 delegations, when polled, cast some scattering 
 votes for men who had not been placed in 
 nomination, the votes of the entire delegations, 
 under the unit rule, were registered in accord 
 ance with the choice of the majority for Gar- 
 rard. The Pocket counties stood doggedly by 
 Poindexter. By the time Luttroll County was 
 reached, with the announcement of its solid 
 vote for Garrard including the unwilling vote 
 of Dunk Peabody, under the unit rule which 
 he had earlier in the day so ardently demanded 
 Garrard's nomination was assured. 
 
 This, of course, was the signal for another 
 demonstration for Garrard, and as the delegates
 
 324 The Opponents 
 
 were loudly calling his name and clamoring for 
 a speech, the Chairman appointed " the Hon. 
 Morgan Tunstall and the Hon. Leonidas Cox 
 Poindexter a committee to wait upon and 
 escort to the stage our next Congressman, 
 the Hon. Sidney Garrard." 
 
 Tunstall, who after his remarks to the con 
 vention had sat down in one of the stage seats, 
 rose and went in search of Garrard. In the 
 wings he came face to face with Poindexter, 
 hurrying up from the auditorium. Poin- 
 dexter's usually florid face was very white, and 
 as he met Tunstall he stopped directly in front 
 of him. 
 
 " You damned traitor ! " he bit out, and with 
 his soft felt hat, which he was carrying in his 
 hand, struck Tunstall a vicious blow squarely 
 on the mouth. 
 
 Tunstall, with clenched fist, sprang at his 
 assailant, but there was a muffled report of a 
 pistol from Poindexter's coat-pocket, and 
 Tunstall, clutching at the canvas of one of the 
 side scenes of the stage, sank to the floor.
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE SUNLIGHT ON THE WALL 
 
 FROM the first Tunstall felt that his wound was 
 mortal. As he lay in his bed at the Bracebury 
 hotel, on the day following the convention, he 
 was facing death with an equanimity that ap 
 proached content. Once he wondered whether, 
 if he knew that resistance would defeat death, 
 he would care to resist. The fact that he did 
 not now care to resist, that he did not care 
 whether he lived or died, was the best evidence 
 to him that benignant Nature had already ad 
 ministered to him that blessed anodyne which 
 she reserves for those at whom she is about to 
 strike her last blow. Aside from this natural 
 dispensation, this release from responsibility 
 and desire, Tunstall did not ask himself or 
 if he asked he did not take the trouble to 
 decide whether, if he could, he would have 
 ordered his fate otherwise. He was no coward, 
 nor was he given to morbid exaggeration, but 
 Nature's anodyne must have been materially
 
 326 The Opponents 
 
 aided by his state of satisfaction that the future 
 which lay in wait for him only yesterday had 
 been cheated by Poindexter's bullet. Certainly 
 he harbored no vengeful feeling toward 
 Poindexter. 
 
 But there was one recurring irritant, one 
 persistent obstacle to the serenity of his last 
 hours, which he pondered as he lay with closed 
 eyes in his shaded room, and which grew more 
 disturbing the more he pondered it. There 
 was something he had left undone, something 
 he had yet to do before he died. He had 
 hastened away from Grace Knowles in West 
 Virginia without considering the possibility of 
 her revealing to Margaret Helm the secret from 
 whose blight she had been so carefully pro 
 tected. Had Grace Knowles, while he was 
 pursuing his selfish flight through the moun 
 tains, revealed to Margaret that secret? It is 
 true he recalled now that in his interview with 
 Grace Knowles she had said that nothing could 
 ever induce her to make such a revelation to 
 Margaret, and at that time she undoubtedly 
 had meant what she said. But who could tell 
 when she might change her mind, or yield to 
 some sudden impulse, and betray everything 
 to Margaret? Was there enough good, with
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 327 
 
 enough strength, in Grace Knowles to enable 
 her always to resist the instinct of mother 
 hood, or the temptation to thrust herself into 
 Margaret's purer and brighter world, at the 
 cost of afflicting her with the knowledge of her 
 origin's shame? 
 
 The risk was too great. It must be removed. 
 That must yet be his task. He must not die, 
 he would not die, before he had attended to 
 that. If it was in his power to prevent it, 
 Margaret should never know her mother's 
 identity or story. 
 
 But could he prevent it? How was he, a 
 dying man, to prevent it, if Grace Knowles 
 should will otherwise? 
 
 He did not know how, but he would prevent 
 it. He would make sure of it he still had 
 that confidence in himself though the grave 
 was now but a step before him. 
 
 The first thing to be looked after was the 
 arrangement of an interview with Grace 
 Knowles. One of his physicians being in the 
 room, Tunstall asked if he knew whether 
 any one from Luttroll County was still in 
 Bracebury. 
 
 " Oh ! yes," was the response. " Mr. Gar- 
 rard, both of the Letchers, Mr. Nixon, and
 
 328 The Opponents 
 
 John Driggs have all been up to ask about you 
 in the last hour." 
 
 Tunstall thought over the list. He believed 
 he could call upon any one of them to do him 
 the service he now desired, but there were 
 reasons why it might be best not to call upon 
 the first three in this particular instance. 
 
 " I wish to see Driggs," he announced. 
 
 " But you know you are not to see any one 
 yet awhile." 
 
 " You suggested this morning that it might 
 be prudent to put my affairs in order." 
 
 " Oh ! that is always well." 
 
 " Then send for John Driggs. I want him 
 to put them in order for me. Besides, doctor, 
 it is n't worth while trying to deceive me. I 
 know my condition as well as you do." 
 
 " Your case is not at all hopeless. I '11 send 
 for Driggs if you will have as little to say to 
 him as possible." 
 
 " There '11 be little to say." 
 
 When Driggs entered and took a seat by 
 Tunstall's bed, the two men clasped hands in 
 silence. Then Tunstall came directly to the 
 point. 
 
 " I want you to do something for me, John." 
 
 " Anything on earth, Mr. Tunstall."
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 329 
 
 " Find Grace Knowles and bring her here as 
 
 quickly as you can. She was at Springs 
 
 ten days ago." 
 
 " You may certainly count on me." 
 
 " Better not mention my name in the matter. 
 You would have trouble in getting her to come 
 if she knew it was to see me. Invent some 
 pretext to get her to the hotel here and into 
 this room without letting her know that I am 
 here. You can manage it, can't you?" 
 
 " I can, and will." 
 
 For half a week after Driggs' departure 
 Tunstall lived and waited. At the end of the 
 second day he received a telegram which 
 greatly strengthened him in his fight to pro 
 long his life. It was from Driggs, and read : 
 
 " Start at once with Mrs. K. Will reach 
 Bracebury Sunday afternoon'' 
 
 In the mean time Tunstall's brain was busy 
 with the problem he had set himself: How 
 was he to make sure that Margaret Helm 
 should be guarded from the wretched knowl 
 edge of her birth ? How was he to deal with 
 Grace Knowles to effect this end? 
 
 Many plans were conceived, weighed, and 
 dismissed, until finally he settled on two. He
 
 330 The Opponents 
 
 would try the first, and if that should prove 
 unsuccessful, he would have recourse to the 
 second, which must not fail. With this con 
 clusion Tunstall's mental faculties found grate 
 ful release from further responsibility in that 
 direction, and he closed his eyes restfully. 
 He had only now to live until he had seen 
 Grace Knowles and carried out one of his 
 plans or the other. 
 
 John Driggs returned Sunday afternoon. As 
 he bent over Tunstall and took him by the 
 hand, he did not need to ask how he was. 
 The nurse had told him that in the corridor, 
 and Tunstall's haggard face told him even 
 more impressively. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Tunstall, I am back," he said 
 simply. 
 
 "Thank you, John," Tunstall replied in a 
 voice whose weakness betrayed no less than his 
 face did the ground he had lost since Driggs 
 had seen him. "Is she with you?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. I left her in the parlor." 
 
 " Does she know she is to see me? " 
 
 " Oh ! no, sir. I did n't mention your name. 
 I made up a yarn of my own." 
 
 " Bring her up, please, at once." 
 
 " All right, sir."
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 331 
 
 Driggs rose and was crossing the room when 
 Tunstall added : 
 
 " Leave her in here and shut the door. 
 You stand outside, please, and keep others 
 out." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Tunstall lay with closed eyes and listened to 
 the step of Driggs creaking along the corridor 
 and then down the stairs. " Driggs is doing 
 his best to walk softly," he thought, and smiled. 
 Then the creaking ceased and there was silence, 
 broken only by the groans of a heavily loaded 
 wagon in the street and by the lazy chant of 
 the wagon driver. 
 
 After a little the creaking on the stairs began 
 again. " Driggs is having no trouble in get 
 ting her here," ran Tunstall's active brain. " I 
 knew I could rely on him. Driggs would have 
 made his mark in the world if his field had been 
 a wider one." 
 
 As the steps approached down the corridor, 
 the rustle of skirts became audible, and Tun 
 stall raised his head a little higher on the pil 
 lows, his face assuming the expression of power 
 and will which the painter's brush and even in 
 a greater degree the photographer's camera in 
 variably caught and perhaps exaggerated.
 
 332 The Opponents 
 
 There was a pause outside the door, which 
 opened and closed again, leaving Mrs. Knowles 
 standing before Tunstall. For a little, while 
 her eyes were adapting themselves to the dark 
 ened room, she did not move. Then she 
 walked over lightly to Tunstall's bedside. 
 
 " Mr. Driggs," she said, stooping over Tun- 
 stall, " told me that " 
 
 She suddenly recoiled with a startled and 
 terrified " You ! " repressed almost to a whis 
 per; then turned to flee to the door. Half 
 way across the room, she tottered with faint- 
 ness and grasped the back of a chair for 
 support. 
 
 " Don't leave yet," Tunstall called to her, in 
 a tone at once of reassurance and command. 
 " I have sent for you because I must have a 
 short talk with you ; and I shall not last much 
 longer to have it" 
 
 She was shaking and sobbing now in the 
 weakness of her shocked nerves. 
 
 " I '11 wait till you become calmer," he said. 
 " There is n't much to say ; but that must be 
 clearly comprehended by each of us." 
 
 He lay silently watching her while she dried 
 her eyes and gradually checked her sobs. 
 Finally she drew herself erect and turning
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 333 
 
 abruptly toward Tunstall, demanded, with a 
 flash of anger in her eyes: 
 
 "What do you want with me?" 
 
 " A last understanding." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I must be satisfied before I die (I am not 
 satisfied yet) that Miss Helm will be safe from 
 you that you will not tell her who she is 
 if I leave you in the world with her." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she panted, a 
 tremor of alarm modifying the challenge of 
 her voice. 
 
 " I mean that ever since you told me that 
 Miss Helm was your daughter " 
 
 " I told you what? " she interrupted in shrill 
 astonishment. 
 
 " I do not care to repeat those words. 
 But " 
 
 " I told you no such thing ! " 
 
 " Come ! Don't waste time. When you 
 told me that, in the woods that day " 
 
 " I told you no such thing, I say ! I remem 
 ber I started to tell you after you had become 
 so indignant at the very thought of my daring 
 to venture within sight or hearing of Margaret 
 Helm that she was my daughter's life-long, 
 dearest friend, when you so suddenly stopped
 
 334 The Opponents 
 
 me by flying at my throat as if to strangle me, 
 and left without " 
 
 Tunstall, notwithstanding his weakness and 
 his wound, had jerked himself up on his elbow, 
 and his countenance underwent a transforma 
 tion that suppressed Mrs. Knowles' words and 
 held her as if fascinated. Blank incomprehen 
 sion, vivid comprehension, fleeting, poignant 
 humiliation for his mistake, in turn swept away 
 by a flood of joy and thankfulness, were graphi 
 cally depicted on his wasted face, as he stared 
 at Mrs. Knowles, his speechless mouth half 
 open. 
 
 "This this is the truth?" he finally asked, 
 in a low-pitched voice. 
 
 " Of course it is. It never crossed my mind 
 to say that Margaret Helm was my daughter, 
 but I was glad to let you know that the girl 
 you had such a horror of me even speaking to 
 was my daughter's best friend." 
 
 Tunstall sank back on his pillow with a sigh 
 of profound relief. " Thank God ! " were the 
 words his lips, all his being, breathed, though 
 they reached Mrs. Knowles only as an indis 
 tinguishable murmur. 
 
 " My daughter lived in the same town in 
 Virginia that Margaret Helm lives in." Mrs.
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 335 
 
 Knowles spoke hurriedly, as if impelled by 
 the spell of the subject. " They gave her an 
 other name there Elsie Russell. Perhaps 
 you have heard Margaret Helm speak of her," 
 a little wistfully, almost interrogatively. " She 
 and Margaret were inseparable from childhood, 
 and after her death Margaret went abroad. 
 When she came back this summer, and I found 
 out she was up there in the mountains, I went 
 there because I wanted to know Elsie's friend 
 and because I hoped that sometimes she might 
 talk to me of Elsie. And yet you you would 
 have denied me even that, Morgan Tunstall ! 
 Is there no end to your malignancy? " 
 
 Tunstall, whose eyes had been fixed dream 
 ily on a faint beam of sunlight that flickered 
 on the wall through the partially closed blinds, 
 turned now to Mrs. Knowles. 
 
 "There is an end to everything," he said 
 quietly, " and I shall deny you nothing more. 
 I am sorry to have put you to the inconven 
 ience of coming here, and Mr. Driggs will make 
 what amends he can. Oh, John ! " he called. 
 
 Driggs opened the door and entered. 
 
 " Mrs. Knowles is ready to go, John," Tun 
 stall said. " Please do me one more service 
 won't you ? and look after her in any way
 
 336 The Opponents 
 
 that will add to her comfort, or that she may 
 suggest." 
 
 "Yes, sir, Mr. Tunstall; indeed, I will," 
 Driggs answered humbly, as if he were already 
 in the presence of the dead. 
 
 He stood with his hand on the open door, 
 waiting. Grace Knowles caught her breath, a 
 sudden surge of color in her face, her lips 
 parting with the impulse to speak. But no 
 words came; and seeking Tunstall's eyes, she 
 saw that they were again fixed dreamily, in ap 
 parent forgetfulness of all else, on the flicker 
 of sunlight on the wall. 
 
 Gathering her skirts cautiously in her hand, 
 she turned away and with bowed head went 
 noiselessly from the room, seemingly touched 
 with something of Driggs' own humbled spirit. 
 Driggs followed, gently closing the door. 
 
 The eyes of Tunstall remained long on the 
 flickering sunlight. He had, indeed, forgotten 
 Mrs. Knowles and Driggs, almost before they 
 were out of the room. For the moment he 
 had forgotten everything except that Margaret 
 Helm was free from the menace he had be 
 lieved hanging over her. Not only was he 
 relieved of the thought, revolting in itself, that 
 Margaret had in her veins the blood of Julius
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 337 
 
 and Grace Knowles, but he was relieved of the 
 dread that she might some time discover that 
 such a curse was upon her. He could think of 
 Margaret now without sullying his thought of 
 her by wondering how it was possible for such a 
 girl as she to spring from such parentage ; but, 
 better than that, he could also think of her 
 without the foreboding that she might find un- 
 happiness and humiliation through her knowl 
 edge of such parentage. The golden sunbeam 
 lengthened upward on the wall; through the 
 open window the air stirred, languid with the 
 warmth of the August afternoon ; and across 
 the peaceful town drifted the mellow tones of 
 a distant church bell. For once Tunstall 
 seemed at peace with himself and the world. 
 It should not be inferred that his discovery 
 of the mistake he had made in assuming Mar 
 garet Helm to be Grace Knowles' daughter 
 plunged him into anguished repining for what 
 he had lost through that mistake. He was not 
 harrowed, as he lay there now, by any delu 
 sions as to what might have been. If he should 
 get well now, his attitude toward Margaret 
 could not be different from what he had seen 
 it must be on the day he had followed the 
 wandering brook in the woods and had fought 
 
 22
 
 338 The Opponents 
 
 out his fight while stretched on the ground be 
 neath the pine. It is true he knew now that 
 it was a mistake which precipitated that fight 
 a mistake which seemed a flimsy trick 
 played on him by his own hastening senses 
 but it was a mistake which, as by a glaring 
 flash, revealed and illuminated the impassable 
 chasm between himself and Margaret, or all 
 such as she. Margaret was not Grace Knowles' 
 daughter, as he had then supposed she was, 
 but what mattered that? She might have been. 
 At any rate, Grace Knowles had had a daughter, 
 and she might have been in innocence and 
 loveliness all that Margaret was. Margaret had 
 taken to her heart Grace Knowles' daughter; 
 but even if she had not done so, no such girl as 
 Elsie Russell might have been and as Margaret 
 Helm was, could be for him, the self-appointed 
 judge and executioner of Grace Knowles. His 
 way, forever sundered from Margaret's, had 
 been perfectly clear to him ever since those 
 hours under the pine, and now that he knew it 
 was an error which had shown him that way, 
 the way itself remained, no whit less clear or 
 fixed. He did not now even review his decisive 
 conclusion then made, or its compelling motives. 
 Nor had he a regret for any step he had taken
 
 The Sunlight on the Wall 339 
 
 since, nor did he, to the last, have a vengeful 
 feeling toward Poindexter, his murderer. 
 
 He died two days later, and as Sidney Gar- 
 rard and Hugh Letcher stood beside him and 
 looked down on him in his coffin, Hugh said : 
 
 " He had his faults, but perhaps, after all, it 
 is death that unveils the real man. There is 
 something godlike in the expression on his face 
 now." 
 
 Sidney bent over and took Tunstall's hand 
 for the last time, as he answered in a choking 
 voice : 
 
 " He was a big man, Hugh big as an oppo 
 nent, big as a friend. And it would have been 
 different for him if life had been such that he 
 could have looked upon it with such an ex 
 pression as this with which he looks upon 
 death." 
 
 But the expression on Tunstall's face was 
 only that which had come to it on the quiet 
 Sabbath afternoon when he had turned from 
 Grace Knowles to the flickering sunlight on the 
 wall.
 
 XXVII 
 
 INTO THE COMING SPRING 
 
 LATE in February, a year and a half after the 
 events of the Bracebury convention, Sidney 
 Garrard, serving his first term in Congress, left 
 Washington for Kentucky, in order to be 
 present at the wedding of Florence Letcher 
 and Robert Nixon. Garrard would have trav 
 elled much farther than Kentucky to attend 
 Florence Letcher's wedding, even if he had not 
 known that Florence would have as one of her 
 guests on this occasion Margaret Helm. 
 
 He had not seen Margaret now since the 
 first of the winter, when he had stopped off, 
 on his way to Washington, at the little Virginia 
 town in which she lived. He had made several 
 pilgrimages to this town during the preceding 
 year and a half, and once, a few months after 
 his nomination by the Bracebury convention, 
 he had ventured an effort to find whether the 
 time had yet come for him to press his love to 
 an issue, and had quickly found that it had not.
 
 Into the Coming Spring 341 
 
 With another woman he might have boldly 
 taken the aggressive and won, but with Mar 
 garet he knew that such a course would be 
 fatal, and that his one chance was in his patience 
 to wait. But his patience was becoming pre 
 cariously strained. 
 
 The afternoon before the wedding he had 
 out his roadsters and started over to Letcher 
 Tavern for Margaret, who had promised to drive 
 with him, " if she could possibly get away." 
 He was full of that promise of Margaret's. 
 
 " Don't you think," she had said archly, 
 " you are asking a great deal of a girl to leave 
 all these delightful wedding preparations and 
 go off driving with a mere man? " 
 
 " But there is a house full of girls to attend 
 to the wedding preparations," he had answered. 
 
 "That makes it all the harder for one of 
 them to leave." 
 
 " Besides, there is something more than a 
 mere man. There are the horses." 
 
 " Oh, those horses ! Well, for the horses I 
 would give up much. So I '11 promise to go if 
 I can possibly get away." 
 
 There had seemed something in her manner, 
 if not in her words, that set his hopes tingling. 
 If she had not been standing out on the front
 
 342 The Opponents 
 
 porch, with two or three of the other girls 
 chattering at her side and Shelby Letcher in 
 cessant in his personal inquiries about the 
 " old-timers " at Washington, Garrard felt that, 
 in spite of his patience, it would have been 
 difficult for him to resist the impulse to gather 
 her in his arms and take her, as the primeval 
 in a virile man prompts him to take a woman, 
 by sheer force that is not to be withstood. 
 
 As he turned his horses toward Letcher 
 Tavern this afternoon, there was again in his 
 blood the tingle of that new something in Mar 
 garet's manner, and he gave the eager animals 
 a light hand. They dashed away at a speed 
 that must have satisfied the most impatient 
 lover ; but it is a well-travelled bit of turnpike 
 between the Garrard farm and Letcher Tavern, 
 and a " rising politician " like Sidney could 
 hardly hope to traverse it without interruption. 
 To most of those he met or passed to-day he 
 merely waved a salute and tossed a hearty 
 word of greeting, but there were some who 
 were not to be denied more leisurely and in 
 timate interviews. Squire Breckinridge Bodine, 
 for instance, pulled up his horse across the 
 road, and waited for Garrard to halt alongside, 
 which, under the circumstances, he could not
 
 Into the Coming Spring 343 
 
 well avoid. Nor could he well pass on until 
 the Squire had told him what " a grand ree- 
 cord " he was making in Congress, how zeal 
 ously and effectively Breckinridge Bodine had 
 worked to get him to Congress, and how im 
 possible it would be for Breckinridge Bodine 
 to lose the next race for county court clerk 
 if Sidney would only " suppote " him. Further 
 along the pike Nelse Tigert, driving home from 
 Plover with Mrs. Nelse Tigert, must have him 
 stop to shake the pudgy hand of little Sidney 
 Garrard Tigert. Then Dunk Peabody, astride 
 of Rufe Wright's aged mare, planted himself 
 leisurely in the middle of the road. 
 
 " Hello, Sid ! " he called out cheerfully. 
 
 " How are you, Dunk? " Garrard responded, 
 throwing his horses back on their haunches. 
 
 " Y' ain't done got th'ough Congriss already, 
 is you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! I 'm only home on a visit for a 
 few days." 
 
 " I did n't 'low you was th'ough yit, fer you 
 know we 're thes bankin' on you to do up ole 
 Mark Hanna an' Jay Goul' an' the res' o' them 
 plutycrats the fus chanst you git at *em." 
 
 " And old Croesus ? " laughed Garrard. " You 
 don't want me to skip him, do you?"
 
 344 The Opponents 
 
 " An' ole Croesus, too, dad-burn him ! don't 
 you go to skippin' any of 'em. That 's what I 
 tole the boys when I pulled off my coat an 1 
 went to 'lectioneerin' fer you." 
 
 "Yes; I remember you did finally fall in 
 line for me before the election, Dunk." 
 
 " Fall in line fer you ! Say, I ain't been able 
 to borry a mount from Uncle Jesse Craik 
 sence. He 'cuses me o' killin' that mule o' 
 hisn 'lectioneerin' fer you. But I 'd 'a' s'poted 
 you, Sid, after you was nominated by the party, 
 ef I 'd 'a' had to kill a whole drove o' mules. 
 I 'm a hard-shell, Thomas Jefferson, Andy Jack 
 son, Shelby Letcher Democrat, I am, an' I ain't 
 never bolted a nomination er scratched a tickit 
 yit. Say, len' me a bite o' tobacco, Sid." 
 
 Dunk compromised on a cigar, and Garrard 
 drove on to Letcher Tavern. 
 
 Throwing the reins to Minus at the gate, he 
 was entertained, while he waited on the porch 
 for Margaret, by Shelby Letcher with a history 
 of Andrew Jackson's fight against the United 
 States Bank, accompanied with an urgent sug 
 gestion that Garrard apply the lesson in deal 
 ing with certain issues pending in Congress. 
 
 But Garrard was listening more attentively 
 for the coming of Margaret than to the moral
 
 Into the Coming Spring 345 
 
 of Jackson's veto of the bank's charter, and a 
 new light was in his face before Margaret was 
 visible at the turn of the stairway in the hall. 
 
 " So you did manage to get away, after all ! " 
 he said with ill-repressed exhilaration, as he 
 took her hand for an instant. 
 
 "Yes," she replied with, it seemed to him, 
 something of his own radiant spirit ; " I could 
 not resist such a day." 
 
 " And such horses." 
 
 " And such horses ! Were not the day and 
 the horses made for each other ? " 
 
 " The quicker that young man gets married 
 the better," muttered Shelby Letcher, as he 
 watched the two go down the walk to the 
 gate. " He 's thinking a plagued sight more 
 of other things than he is of the United States 
 Bank." 
 
 Margaret sprang up into the seat before 
 Garrard could help her, and he, following, 
 adjusted the robe about her with a solicitous 
 care that even Minus must have understood in 
 some degree had he not been occupied at the 
 horses' heads. 
 
 " All right, Uncle Minus." 
 
 At this from Garrard, Minus stepped aside 
 and the horses leaped forward, but were im-
 
 346 The Opponents 
 
 mediately pulled down into their smooth, reach 
 ing stride that was the admiration of true lovers 
 of the trotter. They had gone perhaps fifty 
 yards when Minus shouted : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Sid ! " 
 
 Garrard brought the horses to a dancing 
 stand, and looked around at the old negro. 
 
 "What is it, Uncle Minus?" he asked. 
 
 Minus shuffled slowly forward, his eyes on the 
 ground, his head soberly turning from side to 
 side. 
 
 "Mr. Sid," he said, as he came up to the 
 wheels, " whut sorter pistol wuz dat? " 
 
 Garrard stared at the old man blankly. 
 
 "What pistol?" he asked, in astonishment. 
 
 " Dat ar pistol whut wuz fired fom de b'loon 
 dat time. Wuz she er 44 er 38, er whut? " 
 
 Garrard's burst of laughter was prevented by 
 a smiling glance from Margaret. 
 
 "Haven't you quit worrying about that?" 
 Garrard replied. " There was n't any such 
 balloon, nor any such pistol. As I told you 
 once, years ago, it was a joke of mine that I 
 made up just to bother you with." 
 
 " I don't keer whut you call it joke er no 
 joke. Hit 's a sum, en a mighty good un, en 
 it 's boun' to have er answer, en I ain't nuver
 
 Into the Coming Spring 347 
 
 gwine res' in peace no mo' tell I works it out. 
 Only you did fergit to say whut sorter pistol 
 dat wuz, en 'pears lak I gotter right to know 
 dat." 
 
 The horses were what Minus called " gaily," 
 and they sped along the smooth turnpikes and 
 elastic lanes with little restraint from Garrard. 
 It was one of those days that sometimes come 
 in late February, with all the brooding pre 
 science of spring. Windless, cloudless, with a 
 pervasive balm in the air and a softer blue in 
 the sky, all the mellow fallow, all the tenderly 
 greening pastures, all the stilled bareness of 
 wood and thicket seemed swelling with the 
 fecund trance of new life to be. 
 
 For a good ten miles the horses had their 
 heads, making a semicircle around Plover and 
 swinging back through the village. The talk 
 of Margaret and Garrard was frivolous and 
 inconsequential. For instance, driving down 
 the long street of Plover, Garrard said, as they 
 passed the establishment of Jaynes & Co. : 
 
 " Some time, when I get to be a celebrity, 
 and a newspaper reporter is sent to ask me 
 how I made my start in life, do you know 
 what I shall tell him?" 
 
 " Oh ! " with affected awe. " Are you going
 
 348 The Opponents 
 
 to tell me before you tell the reporter? No 
 celebrity ever did me that honor before ! " 
 
 "I shall tell him that I made it with my 
 first quarter in the little Kentucky village of 
 Plover, in front of the store of one Hi Jaynes, 
 by holding the horses of high and haughty 
 ladies." 
 
 " And shall you tell him," Margaret laughed, 
 " that a quarter was more than you deserved, 
 considering that it was obtained under false 
 pretences?" 
 
 " Probably not. But there are several things 
 about that quarter I shall not tell the reporter. 
 I shall not tell him, for example, that I have 
 sacredly kept it ever since as my lucky piece, 
 my talisman; that it has brought me all the 
 good fortune of my life; and that if I have 
 done anything or tried to do anything worth 
 doing, or tried to be something that I was not 
 then, the desire and the inspiration all date 
 from the day I earned that quarter." 
 
 He took from his pocket a card-case and open 
 ing it, removed a piece of silver. " Would n't 
 you like to see such a valuable coin ? " he said, 
 extending it to her. 
 
 She turned it over between her gloved fin 
 gers, eying it with mild curiosity. Garrard,
 
 Into the Coming Spring 349 
 
 meanwhile, gazed hard at the ears of his 
 horses, though he did not fail to note, out of 
 the corner of his eye, first the dawning rose in 
 Margaret's face, and then the smile with which 
 she had taken the coin grow until her lips 
 parted and her eyes twinkled. 
 
 " So you have kept it all these years ! " she 
 mused, without looking up from the coin in 
 her hand. 
 
 " All these many and long years," Garrard 
 answered solemnly, his eyes still well to the 
 front, " the longest, the most determined, 
 the most despairing, the most hopeful years 
 a man can ever know." 
 
 " Yes, it must be really several years," Mar 
 garet assented, slowly turning the coin from 
 obverse to reverse and then again to obverse. 
 
 " Several ! It is six six full years next 
 June ! And during all that time that little 
 piece of silver has never been out of my pos 
 session for an instant, until now." 
 
 Margaret handed it back to him with the 
 merriest of laughs. 
 
 " Then you must be mistaken about the 
 length of time you have had it. Have you 
 noticed the date on it? It was coined only 
 two years ago."
 
 350 The Opponents 
 
 " Two years ago ! " Garrard exclaimed, in 
 credulous, staring at the minted date in aston 
 ishment. " So it was. I don't understand it. 
 I " he searched carefully through the card- 
 case "I have never kept any other money 
 in this." He looked through his pockets in 
 vain. " I can't imagine how it happened. 
 I 'm afraid I Ve lost it," he concluded dis 
 consolately. 
 
 " Oh, well," Margaret cheerfully assured 
 him, "the substitute seems to have served 
 you as well as the original. You Ve had 
 even better luck the past year or two than 
 before." 
 
 " I 'd rather have lost anything else I had," 
 he said with such earnestness that Margaret did 
 not laugh at him further, but called his atten 
 tion to the flight of a pair of wild ducks far in 
 the sky. 
 
 They drove homeward by the Old Mill Road, 
 that skirted Tunstall Paddocks, now the estate 
 of one of the wealthy New Yorkers who find it 
 well to have a breeding-farm in Kentucky as an 
 adjunct to their racing-stables in the East. 
 They passed Garrard's own home, with Kate 
 Cockerill running to the door to wave them a 
 salute, and then struck into the stretch of road,
 
 Into the Coming Spring 351 
 
 over which they had driven nearly six years 
 before, to Letcher Tavern. 
 
 Their long and swift journey had taken the 
 edge off the horses, and they were content to 
 slacken their pace, in obedience to Garrard's 
 pressure on the bits. As they passed under 
 the wild-grape arch, Garrard pulled them to a 
 walk. 
 
 " The Tavern is too near and there is too 
 little of this rare day left to hurry through it," 
 he said. 
 
 "Yes," Margaret assented, "drive slowly 
 along here. It is the loveliest road we have 
 been over to-day, and it may be winter again 
 to-morrow. But this afternoon, and here, one 
 may feel the spring, if he may not see it." 
 
 " But one may see it too, or at least some 
 signs of it. Look how the stubble is being 
 ploughed under yonder. Look what a com 
 motion the crows are making over the ploughed 
 ground. Look at those horses in the pasture 
 there ; do you notice how their shaggy winter 
 coats are stained with clay? They have been 
 lying down and rolling over and over in the 
 good, soft dirt." 
 
 " And look at the pasture itself. Could any 
 thing be more exquisitely fresh than the new
 
 352 The Opponents 
 
 green under the dead weeds and brown grass? 
 And over there, along the river, can you not 
 see a faint mist of color on the tops of the 
 bushes? And, really, isn't that a redbud down 
 there?" 
 
 " Surely you do not see a redbud yet ! There 
 is a redbud tree along here, but there is a dog 
 wood beside it, and they always bloom together. 
 You don't see any signs of dogwood blossoms, 
 do you? And do you know what that odor 
 is?" 
 
 " Of course ! The odor of the ploughed 
 ground." 
 
 "Do you smell that, too? I was speaking 
 of an odor not so subtle that of burning brush. 
 You can see the haze of smoke, away over there 
 in one of the fields behind Letcher Tavern. 
 And you can also hear the coming of spring at 
 Letcher Tavern, even at this distance. Have 
 you ever noticed before, this winter, such an 
 exuberant chorus from the Letcher Tavern 
 fowls?" 
 
 " But listen to the river ! What a crooning 
 new song it has ! It did not have it yesterday." 
 
 The slowly walking horses stopped, almost 
 of their own accord, and Margaret and Garrard 
 looked out over the peaceful scene stretching
 
 Into the Coming Spring 353 
 
 to the widely circling horizon. Then they 
 turned simultaneously to each other. 
 
 " Margaret." 
 
 " Yes," she faltered, her eyes falling in spite 
 of her. 
 
 " Do you remember it was here, nearly six 
 years ago, that you would not let me speak of 
 what I most wished to speak of?" 
 
 " Yes," so low that he would not have been 
 certain of it but for the motion of her lips. 
 
 " And of what I have most wished to speak 
 of ever since?" 
 
 There was a moment during which she made 
 no sign. Then there was a tremor of the 
 lashes, and when she raised her eyes there was 
 a light in them that not even the sun of such a 
 day as this ever struck into the heart of the 
 singing river. She laid her hand in his. 
 
 " I shall never tire of listening to it now," 
 she answered. 
 
 It was an hour yet to Letcher Tavern, as 
 Sidney Garrard drove, for there were many 
 things to say and to hear, now that the last seal 
 of constraint was removed from these two. 
 Half of this hour had flown when Garrard was 
 asking: 
 
 " Tell me, when did you know? "
 
 354 The Opponents 
 
 "I was not sure until recently until this 
 winter." 
 
 " Until some time after I saw you last in 
 Virginia?" 
 
 She nodded affirmatively. 
 
 " That is no news to me," he said, as one 
 who looks back on perils passed. " I have 
 always known, until this last visit to Kentucky, 
 that you were not sure." 
 
 " There is something else I ought to tell 
 you, perhaps," she ventured with a little 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Tell me anything or nothing, as you like," 
 he answered in content. " Nothing but what 
 you have already told me to-day can matter 
 now." 
 
 Away to the left, under the western sun, lay 
 the fences and stables of Tunstall Paddocks. 
 On the side of a low hill, in a clump of young 
 pines and willows, was the family burying- 
 ground, from which rose an ostentatious granite 
 shaft erected in Morgan Tunstall's memory by 
 some of his political admirers. Margaret's eyes 
 rested on this monument for a little, and then 
 she turned again to Garrard. 
 
 "While Mr. Tunstall was alive, I was not 
 sure," she said simply.
 
 Into the Coming Spring 355 
 
 " Yes, I understood that," was Garrard's 
 quiet reply. 
 
 " And and if he had not died, I am not 
 sure even now whether in the end it would 
 have been you or he." 
 
 " You have told me nothing that I did not 
 know already, dear," Garrard said, pressing her 
 hand, " and nothing that can make any differ 
 ence now that I know that, whatever might or 
 might not have been, it is I." 
 
 The horses picked their way along the smooth 
 road toward Letcher Tavern. Behind now 
 were Tunstall Paddocks and the granite col 
 umn ; in front, the sunlight on the broadening 
 river. Margaret and Garrard, looking forward 
 or into each other's eyes, went on into the 
 coming spring.
 
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