shed. There were murmurs of hostility in the
throng about him. He ran over swiftly in his mind the contents of his
note-book and fortified his courage.

"I haven't secured a warrant yet--but I'll take your dare," he
announced. He started to come down the aisle.

"Just one moment," called a stentorian voice in the gallery. "You're
wrong, my man, down there. I don't want to see an innocent person
disgraced in public nor an officer get himself into a scrape. That man
is not Nelson Sinkler."

"What are we running here--a state convention or a police court?"
Colonel Dodd demanded, leaping up and grabbing the arm of the presiding
officer. "Order all those men ejected from the hall."

But at that moment the convention was not in the control of the
chairman. Irregular as it all was, human nature demanded to be shown
there and then.

Delegates arose, shouting, and surrounded Farr, making effectual
bulwarks against Mullaney with their bodies. Voices asked the stranger
in the gallery for information, and he motioned the vociferous mob into
silence.

"I am a United States post-office inspector, and I can easily prove my
identity, gentlemen. I'm here in this convention merely as a spectator,
killing time till my train leaves. But I know Nelson Sinkler because
I arrested him a month or so ago after he had been a fugitive for two
years. He killed a mail clerk. He is now awaiting trial. If that man
down there is arrested as being Nelson Sinkler it will mean a lot of
trouble for somebody." He sat down.

"Who are you?" yelled a chorus of the ring's henchmen. They pressed as
near to Farr as his body-guard would permit and shook their fists at
him.

"I am a man and not a spirit," he said in the first silence--and
silence came quickly, for they were eager to hear. "You can see that
for yourselves. But just now I am less a man than a _Voice_." He shouted
that last word. "The Voice calls you to rebuke the kind of politics that
has just been attempted here. You have seen, you have heard! Will you
indorse it by your votes? Will you keep in power that gang that has
attempted it in the desperation of defeat?"

"No," the voices of men tumultuously replied.

Reckless and unjust attack had never tossed a more golden opportunity
into a man's hands.

"Then come over to the side of decency, my men. Nominate a champion who
will be spotless and unafraid. There is war in this commonwealth instead
of politics. Through one war the great patri