o risk the final charge. The reputation of Jethro Bass is at
stake. Should he risk and lose, he must go back to Coniston a beaten
man, subject to the contempt of his neighbors and his state. People
do not know that he has nothing now to go back to, and that he cares
nothing for contempt. As he sits in his window day after day he has only
one thought and one wish,--to ruin Isaac D. Worthington. And he will do
it if he can. Those who know--and among them is Mr. Balch himself--say
that Jethro has never conducted a more masterly campaign than this, and
that all the others have been mere childish trials of strength compared
to it. So he sits there through those twelve weeks while the session
slips by, while his opponents grumble, and while even his supporters,
eager for the charge, complain. The truth is that in all the years of
his activity be has never had such an antagonist as Mr. Flint. Victory
hangs in the balance, and a false move will throw it to either side.

Victory hangs now, to be explicit, upon two factors. The first and
most immediate of these is a certain canny captain of many wars whose
regiment is still at the disposal of either army--for a price, a
regiment which has hitherto remained strictly neutral. And what a
regiment it is! A block of river towns and a senator, and not a casualty
since they marched boldly into camp twelve weeks ago. Mr. Batch is
getting very much worried about this regiment, and beginning to doubt
Jethro's judgment.

"I tell you, Bass," he said one evening, "if you allow him to run around
loose much longer, we're lost, that's all there is to it!" (Mr. Batch
referred to the captain in question.) "They'll buy up his block at his
figure--see, if they don't. They're getting desperate. Don't you think
I'd better bid him in?"

"B-bid him in if you've a mind to; Ed."

"Look here, Jethro," said Mr. Batch, savagely biting off the end of a
cigar, "I'm beginning to think you don't care a continental about this
business. Which side are you on, anyway?" The heat and the length
and the uncertainty of the struggle were telling on the nerves of the
railroad president. "You sit there from morning till night and won't say
anything; and now, when there's only one block out, you won't give the
word to buy it."

"N-never told you to buy anything, did I--Ed?"

"No," answered Mr. Batch, "you haven't. I don't know what the devil's
got into you."

"D-done all the payin' without consultin' me, hain't you