When the meager little memories were all done he sat down on his bed
again and felt that nothing mattered, since she was to marry Albert
Wellesly and would surely believe him guilty of all that was charged
against him. He felt no jealousy of her chosen husband, and no anger
toward Wellesly because he had won her. He was conscious only of a
vague wonder that any man had dared ask Marguerite Delarue to be his
wife.

On Saturday of the first week in October Judge Harlin received a
private dispatch from Santa Fe saying that the supreme court had
decided the shrievalty contest in favor of Joe Davis, the Democratic
candidate. At once the threatened storm began to break. By noon Main
street was again divided into two opposing camps. Every rifle,
revolver and shot-gun in the town that was not carried on some man's
person was put within easy reach of ready hands. Shops and offices,
stores and gardens were deserted, and men hurried to the center of the
town, where they drifted along the sidewalk or stood in doorways in
excited groups, each side anxiously and angrily on the alert for some
open act of hostility from the other. The Republicans said they had
not received official notice of the decision of the court, and that
they would not surrender the office until it should reach them. The
Democrats demanded that it be given up at once and accused the other
side of secreting the court order with the intention of holding the
office through Emerson Mead's trial. The district court was to convene
at Las Plumas on the following Monday. Mead's case was the first on
the docket.

Men who were next door neighbors, or friends of long standing, passed
each other with scowls or averted faces, if they were members of the
opposing parties. Mrs. John Daniels was planning to give a swell
breakfast to a dozen chosen friends early the next week, the first
appearance of that form of entertainment in Las Plumas society, and
she was delightedly pluming herself over the talk the function would
be sure to create and the envious admiration her friends would feel
because she had introduced something new. She had talked the matter
over with her dearest friend, Mrs. Judge Harlin, whom she had sworn to
secrecy, and she was on her way to the post-office to mail her
invitations when she saw that the threatened storm was breaking. Her
glance swept up Main street on one side and down on the other, and she
turned about and hurried home to substitute in her l