The Ramrodders | Page 6

year." The Duke dropped into his quizzical drawl
now. "I was just telling my friend Luke that it's queer how rumors get
started." He walked to the porch-rail and leaned over it, his shaggy
head dominating them. And then he threw the challenge at them. "The
caucus is going to be held in the other end of the village--not here in
my front dooryard. You'd better get over there. I don't need any such
clutter here. Get there quick. There may be some people that you'll
want to warn. Tell 'em old Thornton hasn't lost his grip."
He took Presson by the arm, and swung him hospitably in at the big
door of "The Barracks."
CHAPTER II

THE LINE-UP OF THE FIGHT
"That's too rough--too rough, that kind of talk, Thelismer," protested
the State chairman.
Thornton swung away from him and went to the window of the
living-room and gazed out on his constituents.
"You can't handle voters the way you used to--you've got to hair-oil 'em
these days."
Presson was no stranger in "The Barracks." But he walked around the
big living-room with the fresh interest he always felt in the quaint place.
Thornton stayed at the window, silent. The crowd had not left the
yard--an additional insult to him. They were gathering around Niles
and his sheep, and Niles was declaiming again.
The broad room was low, its time-stained woods were dark, and the
chairman wandered in its shadowy recesses like an uneasy ghost.
"It isn't best to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised Presson,
fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a
lot of skittish notions. Humor those that are for you."
"For me?" snarled "the Duke," over his shoulder, and then he turned on
Presson. "That bunch of mangy pups out there for me? Why, Luke,
that's opposition. And it's nasty, sneering, insulting opposition. I ought
to go out there and blow them full of buckshot."
He shook his fists at the gun-rack beside the moose head which flung
its wide antlers above the fireplace.
"Where's the crowd that's backing you--your own boys?"
"Luke, I swear I don't know. I knew there was some growling in this
district--there always is in a district. A man like Ivus Niles would growl
about John the Baptist, if he came back to earth and went in for politics.
But this thing, here, gets me!" He turned to the window once more.

"There's men out there I thought I could reckon on like I'd tie to my
own grandson, and they're standing with their mouths open, whooping
on that old blatherskite."
Chairman Presson went and stood with him at the window, hands in
trousers pockets, chinking loose silver and staring gloomily through the
dusty panes.
"It's hell to pave this State, and no hot pitch ready," he observed. "I've
known it was bad. I knew they meant you. I warned you they were
going to get in early and hit hard in this district--but I didn't realize it
was as bad as this. They're calling it reform, but I tell you, Thelismer,
there's big money and big men sitting back in the dark and rubbing the
ears of these prohibition pussies and tom-cats. It's a State overturn that
they're playing for!"
He began to stride around the big room. In two of the corners stuffed
black bears reared and grinned at each other. In opposite corners
loup-cerviers stared with unwinking eyes of glass, lips drawn over their
teeth. "I'm running across something just as savage-looking in every
political corner of this State," he muttered, "and the trouble is those
outside of here are pretty blame much alive."
Niles was shouting without, and men were cheering his harangue.
"There used to be some sensible politics in this State," went on the
disgusted chairman. "But it's got so now that a State committee is
called on to consult a lot of cranks before drawing up the convention
platform. Even a fellow in the legislature can't do what he wants to for
the boys; cranks howling at him from home all the time. Candidates
pumped for ante-election pledges, petitions rammed in ahead of every
roll-call, lobby committees from the farmers' associations tramping
around the State House in their cowhide boots, and a good government
angel peeking in at every committee-room keyhole! Jeemsrollickins!
Jim Blaine, himself, couldn't play the game these days."
If Thornton listened, he gave no sign. He had his elbows on the
window-sill and was glowering on his constituents. They seemed

determined to keep up the hateful serenade. It was hard for the old man
to understand. But he did understand human nature--how dependence
breeds resentment, how favors bestowed hatch sullen ingratitude, how
jealousy turns and rends as soon as Democracy hisses, "At him!"
There was a