the way, it
was that same little captain-general who put you up against the real
thing to-night, without telling me or anybody else what she was going to
do."

The younger man left his chair to go to one of the windows where he
stood for a moment or two looking down upon the street-lights. When he
turned, it was to say: "I'm with you, dad, heart and soul. But you won't
mind my saying that I'm still a little bit afraid that you and your kind
are a menace to civilization and a free government. You'll let me hang
on to that much of my prejudice, won't you?"

"Sure! Hang on to anything you like, son, and say anything you like. Or,
rather, let me say something first. How about this 'career' business of
Patricia's? Have you fixed that up yet?"

Blount shook his head. "She's going home with her father next week," he
said. And then: "Do you know what she did to-day, dad? She ran the
little red car into that pine-tree intentionally--so I couldn't get back
here in time to give Judge Hemingway those affidavits, which we both
supposed would incriminate you."

"Well, God bless her loyal little soul!" exclaimed the Honorable David,
and the grave eyes were suspiciously bright. "I hadn't told her a word
of what I was trying to do; but, Lord love you, Evan, she knew: you
trust a good woman for knowing, every time, son. And now one more thing:
Have you come to know Honoria any better in these last few days?"

"Yes; much better, within the last few hours, dad."

"That's good; that does my old heart a heap of good, son! Now then, you
go straight off to bed and sleep up some. You've had a mighty hard day
for a sick man. To-morrow morning we'll drive out to Wartrace and get
ready to touch off the fireworks when the returns trickle in on Tuesday.
I tell you, boy, Tuesday's election is going to be a regular
old-fashioned, heave-'em-up and keep-'em-a-going land-slide! Good-night,
and good dreams--if that cracked head doesn't go and roil 'em all up for
you."

XXXI

_A LA BONNE HEURE_

By some law of contraries, whose workings not even the politically
profound can fathom, the election proved the truth of the adage that all
signs fail in a dry time by recording itself as one of the quietest and
most orderly ever known in the Sage-Brush State. A few editors there
were, like Blenkinsop, of _The Plainsman_, who maintained stoutly that
it sounded the death-knell of the machine, but there was no gainsaying
the result. The "Paramoun