The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 10

RS. ELLIS was as glad to see Hugh as he was to see her. “You look as if political lobbying didn’t agree with you,” she said, patting his arm affectionately.

“It doesn’t,” he agreed, placing a chair for her near the heater. “I’m not going to try it that way again.”

“What way are you going to try?” asked Mrs. Ellis. Hugh’s reply was indirect. He spoke slowly, his voice so low that his hearer was obliged to lean forward in her chair, bright eyes on his lips.

“Their ignorance and their selfishness was what impressed me most, at first. But, thinking it over, I realized that their ignorance of my business was no greater than mine of theirs. And that their selfishness toward the welfare of the state as shown toward the Old Sioux Tract was no greater than mine toward the Children’s Code. Mrs. Ellis, they are mediocre in brains, every one of them. If you will help me I’ll make that rough-neck legislature swallow the Children’s Code and the Old Sioux Tract at one mouthful.”

Mrs. Ellis grew suddenly red and as suddenly white. “Do you realize,” she asked, “very fully, what you are saying? In order to do this Mrs. Morgan and I shall have to make you governor of Wyoming. We can do it. But I believe that you will have to make an even greater sacrifice than you realize. You are thinking of the pain of giving up your work as a paleontologist. I am thinking of something much more painful.”

She hesitated, then gathered herself together resolutely. “Mr. Stewart, as governor-elect, your private life will be held up to the scrutiny of every man, woman and child in Wyoming. The American voter is a curiously illogical animal. No matter what his or her private life may be, that voter demands that the private life of its governors and its presidents shall be beyond reproach. This is particularly true of the woman voter. My dear boy, if you go into this, you will have to end the gossip about Miriam Page, and return to your wife.”

Hugh drew himself slowly to his feet. As he did so there was a sudden fusillade of gunshots in the street and Johnny Parnell, rifle in hand, burst into the door of The Lariat.

“Pink in here?” demanded Johnny, his great voice filling the shop.

“No! What’s the trouble?” Hugh placed himself quickly between the panting cowman and the door.

“Caught him cursing Jessie, about me—about you. I tried to kill the blank, but I had to get my saddle gun. Leave me out of here, Hughie!”

Hugh did not move. “What’s the idea? To add murder to the rest of Jessie’s troubles?”

“What do you care? What is it of your business?” roared Johnny.

He made a sudden rush at Hugh. The two men clinched, swinging heavily against the cash register. Before Mrs. Ellis could reach the door, it swung open and Jessie ran into the shop.

“Behave yourself, Johnny!” she cried, striding over to the wrestlers.

At the sound of her voice, the purple face of the cowman suddenly paled. He turned himself around in Hugh’s grasp and looked at her.

“Where’s Pink?” he shouted.

“Looking for his gun, with mother at his heels,” she replied.

“He’s harmless if Mrs. Morgan is with him,” said Mrs. Ellis with a quick laugh.

Jessie put a long, finely shaped hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Johnny! Johnny! This is not the way to help me, my dear!”

Johnny's face twisted. “Nobody can talk like that to you, Jessie. Maybe you can stand it, but I can’t.”

“I appreciate that, Johnny, but gun play won’t clear up the snarl I’m in. You’ll have to promise me you’ll let my father alone, Johnny.”

At this moment the population of The Lariat was augmented by the arrival of Pink, six-shooter in hand, with his wife hanging on his arm. Hugh, who was now holding Johnny’s saddle gun, moved with the quickness characteristic of his long, lean body, and catching Pink by the collar shook him as if he had been a fat pink and white bulldog. Then with indescribable swiftness, he booted him into the street, slammed the door and bolted it.

“After all, he is my father-in-law, I suppose,” he said, with a casual air.

“You could have taken his gun without kicking him,” Mrs. Morgan’s voice was tart.

“I’ll kick him again if he doesn’t let Jess alone,” returned Hugh, breaking Johnny’s gun and dropping the cartridges into his own pocket.

“After all, she is your wife, I suppose,” said Johnny, dryly.

There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence, during which Hugh and Johnny stared at each other.

“I hate you, you bone-digging she-man, you!” Johnny broke the silence with a bitterness that filled the room as did his voice.

Mrs. Ellis drew a quick breath. But no one stirred except Hugh. He walked slowly over to Johnny.

“Parnell,” he said, “take that back!”

“It’s true,” repeated Johnny between his teeth.

“Take it back!” said Hugh again, his gray eyes boring into the cowman’s.

The river murmur filled the room Jessie’s fine gaze, endlessly weary, did not leave Hugh’s profile.

“I’ll take back what I called you, but I hate you, just the same.” Johnny’s voice was husky.

“All right!” Hugh nodded. “Now, you three go sit down by the stove I want to talk to you.”

Johnny did not move from his place by the cash register, but the two women took the chairs Hugh indicated. He slowly walked the length of the room, from the stove to the rear window, where he stared at the far wall of the canyon, unseeingly; from the rear window to the front window, where his unseeing gaze rested for a long moment on the distant black silhouette of a coyote above the east crest of the canyon wall. Then he turned deliberately to his old place before the counter.

“I am going,” he said carefully, “to be governor of Wyoming. I have no particular fitness for the job, that I know of, but I can learn. You, Mrs. Morgan, and you, Mrs. Ellis, are going to use your resources to help me swing the woman vote. I’m going in without a solitary promise except to force through the Children’s Code.”

“You can be nominated, but you can’t be elected unless you return to your wife!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, a trace of anger in her voice.

Hugh turned on her. “Mrs. Ellis, you and Fort Sioux in general have nothing whatever to do with my private life. I am a decent, law-abiding citizen. What lies or does not lie between me and Jessie Morgan is not your business or that of Wyoming. As governor, I’m not going to administer a marital code for the state.”

“Hugh is right in that!” exclaimed Jessie, suddenly.

“He’ll find out whether he’s right or not when the members of women’s clubs begin man-handling him!” ejaculated Mrs. Ellis.

“Pshaw!” snapped Mrs. Morgan. “They’ll think all the more of him. I know women.”

“Women and the woman vote are two different matters!” affirmed Mrs. Ellis.

Johnny Parnell gave a sudden strident laugh. “Looks like the Gray Stallion would have trouble with his herd from the very start!”

The three women turned startled faces toward Hugh. But the look of fury did not return to the geologist’s face. He nodded gravely. “I accept the appellation. But it’s going to be a mixed herd. For instance, you’re going to bring in the cattlemen in this part of the state.”

“I am like thunder!” shouted Johnny.

“Don’t waste my time, Johnny. I’m through fooling. I’m swapping you one invaluable dinosaur, smashed and scattered to the four winds, for one solid but not invaluable ranchers' vote.” Hugh’s speech was stiff, for his jaw still was set.

“What are you talking about, you fool!” roared Johnny.

“You know what I’m talking about,” returned Hugh. “Are you going to deliver the goods?”

Johnny glared at Hugh, anger, surprise and a certain unwonted respect for his rival struggling for supremacy in his good-natured face. Mrs. Ellis, leaning forward in her chair, turned a glance of bewilderment on Mrs. Morgan, which Mrs. Morgan, bright eyes on Hugh’s profile, did not see.

“Hustle up, Johnny,” insisted Hugh.

“You’ve gone plumb loco, Hughie,” growled the cowman.

“Have I? You’ve seen fit to intrude yourself on me in some particularly personal matters, Johnny. Now you’ll pay. Are you going to deliver that vote?”

Johnny did not return Hugh’s threatening stare. He was watching Jessie as if to discover what thoughts were passing behind the shield of her strong, tired face. But he received no help from Jessie.

“I’ve been so patient with you, Johnny,” Hugh’s low voice was not pleasant, “that you felt privileged to call me effeminate. I’m going to see you eat those words before many months. One wantonly destroyed dinosaur, Johnny, for the cowmen’s vote.”

“All right,” said the cowman, suddenly, and he walked to the door.

Before he had unbolted it, Hugh’s quiet voice brought him to pause.

“Drop in here tonight, Johnny, for a conference.”

Johnny grunted acquiescence and went out.

Hugh turned to his mother-in-law. “You’re to take orders from Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Morgan. She is my campaign manager.”

Mrs. Morgan jumped to her feet. “Nothing of the sort” she began.

“That’s enough, Mrs. Morgan!” interrupted Hugh. “You can run Pink, but you are now coming through and make up to me for what you’ve done to my life.”

“I won’t take orders from a woman,” snapped his mother-in-law.

“You’ll take orders from my campaign manager,” returned Hugh, “or I’ll wreck every ambition you possess. And I know them all.”

“I’ll take orders if you make Jessie Mrs. Ellis’ assistant, and let the orders to me come through her,” offered Mrs. Morgan, suddenly.

“Jessie is to keep out of this,” Hugh’s voice was short.

“She’s going to help me,” contradicted his mother-in-law.

“No, by Jupiter!” suddenly thundered Hugh. “Jessie is to keep out of this.”

Jessie rose, and with the long deliberation of her stride never more accented, left The Lariat. Her mother would have followed her, but Hugh touched her shoulder.

“I want your agreement, Mrs. Morgan.”

“You seem to forget, Hugh, that you told me you were through with me and mine for good and all.”

“Yes, I did say that,” acknowledged Hugh, “and I’m not sorry I said it, either. I wish I could have lived up to my determination. But I’ve taken in this fight and anybody whom I need to help me must help me. Among other things, I want you to keep Pink in order.”

“Oh, I’m through with Pink!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, darting a quick look at Mrs. Ellis. “I don’t like some things he’s done lately. Of course,” this very distinctly, “there will be no idea of this reach the public, and I’d never divorce Jessie’s father. But I want Mrs. Ellis to understand distinctly that I’m not behind Pink’s vulgar schemes.”

“What your husband is makes no difference to me,” said the mother of the Children’s Code. “Only don’t let it get noised about that there is any serious disagreement between the two of you, or you are ruined, politically.”

“I know that as well as you do,” returned Mrs. Morgan, this time looking at Hugh. She went on, “You are making a mistake in not letting Jessie help you. She has the best of her father and of me in her.”

“Are you boasting?” asked Hugh, unsmilingly.

Mrs. Morgan flushed as she said with astounding gentleness, “No, Hughie I’m not boasting.” After a moment she said:

“I’ll agree, if I seem to the public to have as much authority as Mrs. Ellis,” and this time she reached the door without further interruption.

Hugh turned to Mrs. Ellis. She met his look squarely. “I’m not overpowered by all this masterfulness, Mr. Stewart,” she said.

“I’ll not try masterfulness on you,” he returned gently. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face with his charming expression of affectionate friendliness.

“Mr. Stewart,” Mrs. Ellis’ voice was as gentle as the man’s, “your wife”

“Don’t! Don’t!” Bitterness replaced the affection in his gaze. “You must not, you shall not jeopardize our friendship by touching again on that.”

“I shall presume on friendship to say this much,” insisted Mrs. Ellis. “You have loved Jessie very much or you would not be so bitter. You still feel strongly about her or you would have become indifferent to what she may or may not do.”

There was silence, during which the two looked deep into each other’s eyes. Then Hugh said softly, “Mrs. Ellis, are you going to be my campaign manager?”

“If you will”

“No! No!” interrupted Hugh. “You are never to bring that up again.” He sat down beside her and clasped both her hands. “Mrs. Ellis, help me in this crisis.”

“Young man, are you making love to a woman old enough to be your mother—who wishes she were your mother?”

Hugh smiled and waited. Mrs. Ellis freed one of her hands and smoothed the hair back from Hugh’s forehead. “My dear,” she said, “if you are not very careful you are going to wreck your career.”

“I know,” replied Hugh. “What a pity things mean so much to us! But, Mrs. Ellis, I am going to be a governor and a good governor for a few years before I go back to my dinosaurs.”

“Once you are made governor, you’ll never go back to your geology. You’ll have no right to. You’ll see that two years from now.”

“Then you are going to help me—without exacting any terms!” exclaimed Hugh.

“I’m a weak female fool!” sighed Mrs. Ellis. “Not so weak either. I have great faith in your riding over impossible trails.”

Hugh lifted one of her plump hands to his lips and rose to his feet. There were tears in his eyes. Something in Mrs. Ellis’ voice had brought to his memory his tall, gray eyed mother, star-gazing with him on Christmas Eve. He suddenly felt very lonely and very tired.

“I want—very much,” he said huskily, “to make up—to Bookie—for a good many things.”

For a moment Mrs. Ellis did not reply. Then she said, quietly, “It’s going to be a tremendous fight. I shall enjoy it. I shall begin to enjoy it by calling you by your given name! Hughie, did Johnny Parnell destroy your dinosaur?”

“Evidently he knows something about it,” replied Hugh with an amused grin.

“You mean that you were bluffing?”

Hugh nodded as he filled his pipe. Mrs. Ellis suddenly laughed. “It is really going to be a great fight! Now let’s begin to lay plans.”

It was a great fight. Wyoming never had been sundered before by so strange or so bitter a political war. Hugh himself was not bitter. He drove himself relentlessly. He neither gave nor asked quarter. But he was too impersonal to be acrimonious. This was not true either of his followers or of his adversaries. The latter resented Hugh’s presence in politics. He was classified as a school man. To a westerner a school man has very little to do with life. They resented even more deeply his fight against the Thumb Butte Dam site. But, most of all, they resented his cool disdain of party machinery and party politics.

On the other hand, Hugh’s followers were loyal to an astonishing degree. They liked him. His popularity was of a sudden and violent growth, and not with the women alone. Many men, and not only those who would be unaffected by the Thumb Butte decision, after listening to one of Hugh’s speeches, came out even more strongly than their women folks for this lean, melancholy-looking fossil hunter.

Under a more or less thin shell of hardihood, your western plainsman is extremely sentimental. He is starved for romance. He hungers for the appeal to his imagination. And the story of Hugh’s self-exiling to The Lariat was romance pure and simple. As much as they understood of his sacrifice, the plainsmen approved of highly. But still more highly they approved the quality of his defiance. After all, this still was a frontier state. Men still delighted in the single gun holdup. And Hugh, standing alone against the great Eastern Electric Company and against the ring at Cheyenne, Hugh, inexperienced, lonely, independent of spirit, iron of will, held his followers in a fever of enthusiasm.

It was a tumultuous spring and summer. Under the extraordinary itinerary arranged by Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Morgan there was not a remote section of the huge and difficult state to which Hugh did not penetrate. He traveled for the most part in the airplane, christened the Dinosaur and driven by Marten, the ex-ace. There was nothing obviously noteworthy in Hugh’s speeches. No one thought of Hugh as an orator or even as a speaker. Reported in the Cheyenne papers, his speeches were reflections of the talks he had given to the two committees of women in The Lariat, many months before. But no one who heard Hugh speak ever was to forget either the man or his vision.

Vision! That is the gift of the gods which makes one man lead while others may only follow. The capacity to see life in the large, to place events in their true relation to their cause, to behold the beginning and the end of the gigantic procession even while one’s self a minute figure moving in the midst of it, this was Hugh’s great and unconscious gift.

In spite or perhaps because of his detached attitude toward state and party lines, Hugh made some exceedingly astute decisions as to the choice of people who were to handle the details of his campaign. That doughty old warrior, Mrs. Ellis, known as the mother of the Children’s Code, had the respect of every voter in the state. She was a clean-handed politician, ruthless, tactful. And though she had temporarily lost the Code and although Hugh did not mention it in his campaign speeches, there was a primal righteousness in a woman politician fighting for babies born and unborn that caused her enemies to respect and fear her strength. For every one in the state knew that Hugh must have pledged himself to the Children’s Code in order to win Mrs. Ellis.

The other astute decision was with regard to Johnny Parnell. For this reason the conference with Johnny that first evening after Hugh had declared himself was noteworthy. Johnny came in after supper, truculently enough, to find Hugh sitting alone, smoking, feet on the window ledge, eyes on the afterglow in the western sky. Hugh indicated an empty chair beside him.

“Let’s have it out, Johnny,” he said. “Not about the cave and the dinosaur. I don’t want to see red for the next few months. I mean about this new enmity of yours.”

“You can’t get decent help out of a guy you’re blackmailing,” growled the cowman, throwing a half-smoked cigarette out of the window and lighting another immediately.

“I know that,” returned Hugh. “I’m not going to blackmail you. What I said to you this morning was just the wildest sort of a guess on my part. If you hadn’t come back as you did, you could have bluffed me easily enough.”

Johnny jumped to his feet. “You mean to tell me you didn’t have the goods on me and Pink?”

“Johnny, didn’t I warn you that when I needed you, I’d whip you into line?” asked Hugh “Well, I need you now, and in you come.”

“Like thunder I do! What kind of a bluff are you throwing, Hugh?”

Again Hugh did not answer. “Don’t think for a minute, Johnny, that I misunderstand your loyalty to Jessie. As a matter of fact, knowing you so well, I’ve taken a queer kind of comfort in feeling that you are her friend. On the other hand, I don’t propose to let you go on thinking you are my enemy. Johnny, you and I couldn’t be enemies if we tried a thousand years, and no matter how much we disapproved of each other’s conduct. Why, man, we were born friends. We’ve borrowed each other’s shirts. We’ve ridden herd alone together for months and never quarreled. Haven’t we, Johnny?”

Johnny stirred uneasily “Don’t you go to trying to rope me while you honey me, Hugh. I just ain’t going to try to forgive you for what you’ve put between you and Jessie. I’m not hoping for myself. I know as well as you do I’ll go off some day and marry some little brunette shrimp that faints if she sees a mouse. But it won’t be because I don’t like Jessie’s kind best. It will just be fate.”

“When I ask you to forgive me will be time enough to discuss that,” returned Hugh, slowly.

“Well, you’re asking me for help and I can’t help you when I feel like I do.”

Hugh smiled. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Of course, to answer your question about the bluff, I’ll have to admit it was pure guesswork. I’m certain you and Pink drank too much raisin jack and ruined the dinosaur, but I have no proof and I don’t want proof.”

Johnny’s mouth twitched, and suddenly he burst into a loud roar of laughter.

Hughie, doggone your fossil hide! Why you dogy, sad-eyed maverick, you! You’ve got Sherlock Holmes beaten at his own game. And me! Me! The strong-armed Swede! Priding myself on being a real he-man, caught without trying by the guy I called a sissy. Hughie, I’d ought to take you out and get you drunk!” and again Johnny shouted with laughter.

Hugh grinned and waited until the cowman had wiped his eyes and seated himself again. Then he said quietly, “I’m not going to let the dinosaur matter rest here, but as I’ve just said, we’ll put it by till the campaign is over. I’m not going to blackmail you. I’m going to buy you.”

“There’s just one way,” returned Johnny, “that you can buy me, and that is by giving Jessie a square deal.”

“Jessie is getting a square deal,” said Hugh. “She is a strong, intelligent woman who up to now has refused to do her bit. Life has struck her a blow that’s wakened her. She’s seeing and feeling and thinking things now that she never knew existed. She’s intrinsically more virile and much cleverer than you are. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t want your help. Why don’t you drop out of her and my personal affairs? I think you’re acting like an intrusive kid.”

Johnny smoked violently but in silence. After a moment Hugh went on:

“I have a straight business proposition to make you. You are one of the most prominent men in the cattle-raisers’ association of Wyoming. You dislike the dude end of ranching as much as I do, and the big end of the business on Bookie’s ranch always has been cattle. Let’s cut out dudes up there from now on Let’s make the ranch the headquarters, experiment station, object lesson, anything you want to call it, for men who are trying to keep Wyoming a cattle-raising state.”

Johnny’s eyes gleamed. He sat up very straight and threw another half-smoked cigarette out the window.

“I don’t know exactly how you’ll go about it,” Hugh went on thoughtfully. “That’s your business.”

“Lord, I know how!” shouted Johnny. “Why, say, Hughie, we could save Wyoming from the sheep men and the nestor if I could have a chance to carry out some ideas I’ve got.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “you go ahead. You’re equal partners with me from now on. Eh?”

“Hughie,” exclaimed Johnny, his great voice infinitely persuasive, “are you doing this just to get the cattle-raisers back of you?”

Hugh rose and paced the length of the room, returning to stand before the cowman.

“Johnny, you’ve said and done some hard things to me lately.”

“By God, I have!” bringing his fist down on the window-sill. “I deserve what you gave Pink.”

“I’d hate to try to give it to you” Hugh glanced appraisingly at Johnny’s brawny bulk. “I like you, Johnny; always did. Your father and Uncle Bookie were buddies in the old days. You and I've ridden the range many a week together.” He paused, then said abruptly: “The cattle-raisers must be made quietly to understand that I’m going to put through the Children’s Code.”

Johnny nodded and rose, his white teeth flashing in his old wide smile. “All right, Hughie! You can keep on riding herd in a book store. Me—I’ve got to start a round-up to vaccinate cattle-raisers. By the way! What are we going to do with Pink?”

“Let him go his gait,” replied Hugh. “He’s done his worst.”

“I guess you’re right,” agreed Johnny, and he took a short-cut through the rear window to the hotel corral.

Thus Johnny Parnell was won to the cause of the Gray Stallion. He developed into a real and powerful party leader.

Hugh’s first and greatest apprehension was, of course, lest the Eastern Electric Corporation should be able to begin actual work on the dam before the fall election. Before he was able, however, to form a new plan of attack on the Public Utilities Commission, he was astonished to receive a visit in The Lariat from old Charlie Whitson.

The old cowman, smooth-shaven face, red veined and full jowled above a bright red necktie, came in to ask for a book on cattle raising. Hugh looked his shelves over seriously enough before he announced regretfully that he had no such work.

“But,” he added, cheerfully, “you might find one up at the ranch.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Whitson, looking from Hugh to the shelves with their heterogeneous mixture of books, Indian curios and fossils. “I heard you’d quit dudes for good.”

Hugh nodded. “Parnell and I decided there were bigger things to be done with Uncle Bookie’s old ranch than fattening dudes.”

“I suppose so!” old Whitson snorted. “Like the A B C’s of dehorning! Well, Stewart, what are you after, anyhow?”

“I want to be governor of Wyoming,” replied Hugh, giving the older man a square look.

“You’ll never make it.”

“If you’re so sure of that, why bother to buy your book on cattle raising from me?”

“Lord! What do you amount to, anyhow?” Whitson snorted again. “Why, the first time I ever saw you, you were a freckle-faced little brat crying because some one had stepped on some fool fossil you’d lugged into the ranch.”

“History repeats itself,” retorted Hugh, grimly.

“And now you’re going to the women with it,” Whitson went on, “and they’re swarming like hornets up there on the Commission. Call ’em off. We aren’t afraid of ’em.”

“Me?” asked Hugh innocently. “But I am afraid of ’em! The leading hornet, as it were, is my campaign manager. I wouldn’t think of directing her movements.”

“Yes, and her right hand is your mother-in-law. Come now, Stewart, what do you want to call ’em off?”

“And I tell you, Whitson, I can’t call ’em off.”

“Your job being merely to make speeches, I suppose!”

“About that.”

Whitson refreshed himself with a fresh mouthful of cut plug. When he spoke again his voice was slightly thick but had lost its sneer.

“You’ve got a powerful backing, Stewart. Even Eli realizes that he’s got his work cut out for him if the women’s man gets the nomination. You aren’t going to like politics, my boy. Better stay with your fossils.”

“I’d like to, but you see the decisions of the Governor and of the Public Utilities Commissioners threaten to take my fossils away from me. Whitson, I’m going to fix it so that the natural resources of this state are going to be saved to the future.”

“Babies coming under the head of natural resources, I suppose,” commented Whitson.

“Absolutely!” returned Hugh, shortly.

“I don’t like the look of it,” said the old politician, suddenly. “The way these school men and such are horning themselves into politics is awful bad for the country. Why, we might as well turn the government over to the women and the professors and be done with it.”

“Whitson,” asked Hugh, soberly, “Mrs. Ellis has Eli beaten on every point. She’s more honest, more intelligent, better educated, and a better politician. Wyoming should be grateful for her.”

“She’s a woman, ain’t she? So no matter how hard she is, she’s soft. The same way with professors. I don’t want ’em in office and,” raising his voice, “I’ll fight ’em as long as I live.”

“Of course, you will,” agreed Hugh, calmly. “Well, Whitson, I’m sorry I can’t dig up a book on cattle raising for you. Here is a book I put in at Mrs. Ellis’ suggestion on the Care and Feeding of Infants. How would you like that?”

“You go to blazes!” growled Whitson. “Stewart, you come up to Cheyenne and have a talk with me and Eli. That’s what I really stopped over for.”

“According to my schedule, I’ll reach Cheyenne in June. I’ll be glad to see you both.”

Whitson eyed Hugh for a long minute. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Yes, it is,” replied Hugh, cheerfully.

“You are making an awful mistake, Stewart,” said the older man. “There’s the east-bound whistling now. You’ll be sorry for this, Stewart,” and he was gone, leaving Hugh with an enormously increased respect for the weight of the women voters of his native state.