The Ramrodders | Page 7

dingy wall map beside him between the windows. A red
line surrounded a section of it: two towns, a dozen plantations, and a
score of unorganized townships--a thousand square miles of territory
that composed his political barony. And on that section double red lines
marked off half a million acres of timber-land, mountain, plain, and
lake that Thelismer Thornton owned.
Chairman Presson, walking off his indignation, came and stood in front
of the map.
"Between you and me, Thelismer, they've got quite a lot to grumble
about, the farmers have. You wild-land fellows have grabbed a good
deal, and you don't pay much taxes on it. You ought to have loosened a
little earlier."
"You feel the cold water on your feet and you lay it to me rocking the
boat, hey?" returned the Duke. "This is no time to begin to call names,
Luke. But I want to tell you that where there's one man in this State
grumbling about wild-land taxes, there are a hundred up and howling
against you and the rest of the gilt-edged hotel-keepers that are selling
rum and running bars just as though there wasn't any prohibitory law in
our constitution." He had turned from the window. "You're looking at
that map, eh? You think I've stolen land, do you? Look here! I came
down that river out there on a raft--just married--my wife and a few
poor little housekeeping traps on it. We never had a comfort till we got
to the age where most folks die. I've had to live to be eighty-five to get
a little something out of life. And she worked herself to death in spite
of all I could say to stop her. Why, when the bill of sale fell due on the
first pair of oxen I owned, she gave me the three hundred old-fashioned
cents that she--don't get me to talking, Presson! But, by the Jehovah,
I've earned that land up there! Dollars don't pay up a man and a woman
for being pioneers. I'm not twitting you nor some of the rest of the men
in this State in regard to how you got your money--but you know how

you did get it!"
"We've stood by you on the tax question."
"And I've stood by you against the prohibition ramrodders, who were
foolish enough to think that rumshops ought to be shut up because the
law said so; and I've stood with the corporations and I've stood with the
politicians, and played the game according to the rules. From the
minute you came into my dooryard to-day you've acted as though you
thought I'd stirred this whole uproar in the State."
"Did you ever know a man to get anywhere in politics if he didn't play
the game--honesty or no honesty?"
"Yes, a few--they got there, but they didn't stay there long," replied the
Duke, a flicker of humor in his wistfulness.
"You bet they didn't," agreed the chairman. "Thelismer, I'm just as
honest as the world will let me be and succeed! But when a man gets to
be perfectly honest in politics, and tries to lead his crowd at the same
time, they turn around and swat him. I reckon he makes human nature
ashamed of itself, and folks want to get him out of sight."
"I know," agreed the old man, and he looked out again on Niles and his
audience. "The tough part of it is, Presson, those men out there are
right--at bottom. They're playing traitor to me and acting like infernal
fools, and I wouldn't let them know that I thought them anything else.
But I'd like to step out there, Luke, and say, 'Boys, you're right. I've
been working you. I've done you a lot of favors, I've brought a lot of
benefits home to this district, but I've been looking after myself, and
standing in with the bunch that has got the best things of the State tied
up in a small bundle. I've only done what every successful politician
has done--played the game. But you're right. Now go ahead and clean
the State.'"
"You don't mean to say you'd do that?" demanded Presson, looking his
old friend over pityingly.

"Luke, I mean that--but I don't intend to do it, not by a blame sight! I
don't believe you ever realized that I was really honest deep down. I
have told you something from the bottom of my heart. But"--he held
out his big hands and closed and unclosed them--"if I should ever let
them loose that way they'd be picked up before they'd gone forty feet
by some other fellow that might be hollering reform and not be half as
honest as I am."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and squinted shrewdly, and spoke
with his