Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/33

 The Major's assertion concerning his " pull " was no idle boast. There were few men in the state with a wider acquaintance, and he was a conspicuous figure around election time. The experience he had acquired in his younger days selling Indian Herb Cough Syrup from the tailboard of a wagon, between two sputtering flambeaux, served him in good stead when, later, he was called upon to make a few patriotic remarks at a Fourth of July Celebration. His rise was rapid from that time, until now his services as an orator were so greatly in demand for cornerstone layings and barbecues that, owing to distance between towns, it kept him almost constantly on the road.

The Major sold an occasional box of salve, and in an emergency pulled teeth, in addition to the compensation which he received for what was designated privately as his " gift of gab." But the Major, nevertheless, had his dark moments, in which he contemplated the day when age should force him to retire to private life. Since the wagon containing his patent leather valise was his home, the Major had no private life to retire to, and his anxiety concerning the future would seem not without cause. Now in a flash all his worries smoothed out. He would capitalize his wide acquaintance and his influence, gain in dependence and perpetuate his name in the same stroke. At the moment he actually suffered because there was no one present to whom he could communicate his thoughts.

The cloud of dust was closer, but not near enough yet to distinguish the moving objects that caused it, so he set himself energetically to applying White Badger Salve to the axle,replacing the wheel and tightening the nut. When he straightened a horseman who had ridden out of the creek bed was scrambling up the side of the " bench.*' He was dressed like a top cowpuncher — silver-mounted saddle, split-ear bridle and hand-forged bit. The Major