"I did the best I could on that, little woman, and I reckon he's big
enough to keep on telling us 'Howdy.' What comes next on the programme?"

"To-morrow I'm going to try to get him to take Patricia driving. Beyond
that I haven't planned, and anyway it doesn't matter, now that you have
Gryson out of the way." Then she offered a bit of news. "Richard Gantry
telephoned me a few minutes ago. He has sent in his resignation, and is
going to Peru."

The senator was opening the door to the adjoining bedroom and turning on
the lights.

"Oh, no, I reckon not," he rejoined, with a mellow laugh rumbling deep
in his great body. "Dick only thinks he is going to Peru. We all think
such things now and then."

XXI

THE UNDER-DOG

Blount's first move on the morning following the militant interview with
his father was telegraphic; he wired the campaign chairmen in the three
towns remaining on his list, cancelling his speaking-engagements. Beyond
that he went forth to institute a painstaking search in the purlieus of
the city, a quest having for its object the unearthing of the man Thomas
Gryson. More and more he was coming to believe that this man was the key
to a larger situation in the field of political corruption than any
which had as yet developed. Wherefore he made the search thorough.

Oddly enough, considering the man and his habits, the quest proved
fruitless. Blount was too clean a man to be on familiar terms with the
saloon men and dive-keepers of the capital-city underworld, or with the
crooks and turnings of the underworld itself; but he found his way
around easily enough in daylight, and had his labor for his pains. For
when he went back to the hotel at the luncheon-hour he brought little
with him save a stench in his nostrils and a slightly increased fund of
mystification. Gryson had disappeared as completely as if the earth had
opened and swallowed him. And Blount knew the disappearance was real,
because the ward-heeler's own henchmen were searching for him.

Daunted but not beaten, Blount meant to continue the quest in the
afternoon. But man proposes, and a small _dea ex machina_ may dispose.
At the _cafe_ family luncheon, at which Blount was careful to make his
appearance, not only because Patricia was there, but also for the sake
of keeping the kinsman peace his father had begged for, it transpired
that Patricia had been promised an auto drive to Fort Parker, the
military reservation sixteen miles to