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 snorted a dry laugh. "Well, I don't see what I can do. He could come up behind me on the street at any time."

"No. I think not," Collins held.

"Why not?"

"It never happens that way. They always seem to wait for you somewhere that they know you'll come—and work themselves up to it."

Wickson tipped back in his swivel-chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "I'm done, anyway, Tim," he said. "Our own people have gone back on me. They don't believe they can re-elect me. And I can't win without their support. ... I don't seem to be able to make them understand what the game is in this town. I can't make them believe it—any more than we could make them believe that Sotjie was putting up Cooney to shoot me." He swung a fist down on the table. "My God! If we could only make them see these things."

Collins shook his head with slow finality.

"We can't, of course," Wickson agreed. "We can't reach them. We can't make them believe it. I wouldn't have believed it myself when I first came in here—hardly. And sometimes I wake up at night, now, and wonder if I haven't been dreaming it."

Collins nodded solemnly, looking at his feet. Wickson began to pace up and down the room again. "Besides," he asked, with an air of relieving