The Ramrodders Part 13

"Even a foolish little girl up here in the woods has got faith that you can--and men who are really big don't forget their old friends. I don't want you mixed up in any wicked thing, Harlan, but I wouldn't want you to go away from me thinking I was selfish and jealous. That isn't the right kind of a friend for any one to have. I've been thinking it over."

He stared at her through the dusk. This sudden flash of worldly wisdom, this unselfish loyalty in one so young, rather startled him.

"That's real grown-up talk, child," he blurted.

"Is it?" The wan little flicker of a smile that she mustered brought tears to his eyes. "Maybe it's because I'll be sixteen to-morrow.

Good-night, Big Boy!" This new, womanly seriousness was full of infinite pathos. She had not released his hand. She bent forward suddenly, leaning from her saddle, and kissed his cheek. "And good-bye, my playmate!" she whispered. While his fingers still throbbed with the last pressure of her hand, the black mouth of the big bridge swallowed her.

He listened to the ringing hoof-beats of her horse till sudden silence told him she had reached the soft soil on the other sh.o.r.e.

He did not gallop to meet his grandfather. He walked his horse for the long mile past the scattered houses of the village till he came to "The Barracks."

When he was still some distance away he saw in the gloom of the porch the red coal of the Duke's cigar. Even then he did not rush forward to protest and denounce.

He slipped off his horse, and led him toward the porch. But before he could speak his grandfather hailed him.

"Run in to your supper, bub. The boys are holding it hot for you. Luke and I were too hungry to wait."

"I can't eat now--not with what's on _my_ mind."

"Oh, bub--bub! Run along with you! There's plenty of time for talk. I'll be here when you come out. Get something to eat, now! That's a good boy!"

Somehow he couldn't begin the attack just then. That tone was too affectionate, too matter-of-fact. And even then his hand seemed to feel the pressure of the little fingers that had released him at the bridge, and the choking feeling was still in his throat.

He gave his horse over to the hostler, and went into the house.

The lamp in the old mess-room thrust its beams only a little way into the gloom. It shone over the table and left the corners dark. The cookee brought the food from the kitchen, poured the tea, and then wiped his hands briskly on his canvas ap.r.o.n.

"I want to shake with you, Mr. Harlan!" He put out his hand, so frankly confident that he was doing the proper thing that the young man grasped it. "It was done to 'em good and proper. They tried to pull too hot a kittle out of the bean-hole that time--sure they did! I congratulate you! I knowed you'd get into politics some day."

Harlan pulled his hand away, and began to eat.

"Served up hot to 'em--that mess was," chuckled the cookee, on the easy terms of the familiar in the household. "Nothing like a rousin' fire if you're going to make the political pot bile in good shape."

He chuckled significantly.

The man pushed the food nearer, for Harlan did not seem to be taking much interest in his supper.

"I suppose you'll be boardin' at Mr. Presson's hotel when you get down to the legislature. I had a meal there once. They certainly do put it up fine. Say, Mr. Harlan, what do you say? Can't you use your pull, and get me a job as waiter or something down there for the session? Excuse me for gettin' at it so quick, but I thought I'd hop in ahead of the rush--they'll all be after you for something, now that you're nominated."

The young man could not discuss with this cheerful suppliant his indignant resolve not to be a legislator.

"You'll have to stay home here and look after Grandfather Thornton, Bob," he hedged.

"Oh, thunder! He's goin' right down to spend the winter with you. Was tellin' Mr. Presson so when they et just now. Said you'd be needin' a steerin' committee of just his bigness!"

Harlan got up and kicked his chair from under him. It went over with a clatter. To his infinite relief he had suddenly recovered some of that wrathful determination that Ivus Niles's sneers had given him earlier in the evening.

Thelismer Thornton heard him coming.

"Pretty heavy on his heels, the boy is!" he observed to the State chairman. "He's been licking his dander around in a circle till he's got it rearing."

The young man halted, erect before his grandfather, but again the old man got in the first word.

"I'm going to give you all the time to talk in you want, bub. I was a little short with you to-day, when I was stirred up, but no more of that! Say all you want to. And I'm going to give you a little advice about starting in. Now--now--now! Hold on. I know just how you feel. I don't blame you for feeling that way. But it had to be done just as I did it--all of it! Now you ought to start in with me just the way Sol Lurchin was advised to when he wanted to tackle Cola Jordan, who had done him on a horse-trade. Sol went to old Squire Bain, and says he to the Squire, 'I want to stay inside the law in this. I don't want him to get no legal hold on me. But I want to talk to him. Now, what'll I say so's to give him what's comin' and still be legal?' 'Well,' says old Squire, rubbing his hands together, 'you've got to start easy, you know.

You want to start easy, so's to make the climax worth something. Now, let's see! Well, suppose you walk up to him and say, "You sp.a.w.n of the pike-eyed sneak that Herod hired to kill babies, you low-down, contemptible son of a body-s.n.a.t.c.her, you was born a murderer, but lacked the courage and became a horse-thief!" There, Sol, start in easy like that and gradually work up to a climax, and you'll have him going--and all inside the law. Two dollars, please!'"

The Duke leaned back in his chair and nested his head in his big hands.

He gazed up meekly at his chafing grandson.

"Start in easy, bub, like that, and work up to your climax. I know just how you feel!"

But just at that moment the chairman of the State Committee was laughing too loudly for any dignified protest to be heard.

"For some reason, grandfather, you seem all at once to have taken me as a subject for a practical joke," said the young man, stiffly. The interlude had taken the sharp edge off his indignation, but he was still bitter. "It may seem a joke to you. To me it seems insult and persecution. I have attended to business, I've worked hard and made money for both of us. To-day you've held me up before this section to be laughed at by some and hated by the rest. I'm glad I've had half an hour to think it over since I first heard about what happened in that caucus.

I won't say the things to you I intended to say. I'll simply say this: I'm going to write a letter declining this nomination. I'm going to publish that letter. And I'm going to say in that letter that I will not take any office that isn't come at honestly."

"Harlan, sit down." His feet had been in one of the porch chairs. He pushed it toward his grandson. The young man sat down.

"You don't know much about the practical end of politics, do you?"

"I do not."

"You'll allow that I do?"

"You seem to, if that's what you call this sort of business that has been going on here to-day."

"Bub, look at the thing from my standpoint for just one moment. I'll consider it from yours, too--you needn't worry. I want you to be something in this world besides a lumber-jack. You've got the right stuff in you. I tried argument with you. You'll have to own up that I did. It didn't work--now, did it?"

"I told you I didn't want to get into politics. I don't want to get in.

I don't like the company."

"Politics is all right, Harlan, when the right men are in. You are the kind the people are calling for these days. You're clean, straight, open-minded, and--"

"Clean and straight! And the people are calling for me!" The young man broke in wrathfully. "You say that to me after the sort of a caucus you sprung to-day? If that's what you consider a call from the people, I don't want to be called that way."

"It was a call, but it had to be _shaded_ by _politics_ a little,"

returned the Duke, serenely.

"If a good man is going into politics, he can go in square."

"Sometimes. But not when the opposition is out to do him with every dirty trick that's laid down in the back of the political almanac."

"If you wanted to start me, and start me fair and right, why didn't you let my name go before that caucus to-day, and then hold off your hands?"

"Because if I had you'd have stood about the same chance as a worsted dog chasing an asbestos cat through h.e.l.l. Look here, bub, I wish I had the time; I'd like to tell you how most of the good men I know got their start in politics. You can be a statesman after you've got your head up where the sun can shine on it, but you've got to be touching ground to keep your head up. And if you're touching ground in politics, you'll find that your shoes are muddy--and you can't help it."

The grandson did not reply. Thornton relighted his cigar. The flare of the match showed disgust and stubbornness in the features opposite.

"You know Enoch Dudley as well as I do, Harlan. That's the man they put up. And a man that has let two of his sons be bound out and has turned back his wife for her own people to support can't hide behind any white necktie, so far's I'm concerned. Luke and I know where the money came from that they've been putting in here. We know the men behind, and what their object is. We know what they are trying to do in the next legislature. You'll see it all for yourself when the time comes, Harlan.