ing-office before
they were bound; you will notice that some of the pages are slightly
singed. As you saw at my house, I'm interested in getting hold of books
relating to the achievements of the Western pioneers. Some of these
bald, unvarnished tales give a capital idea of the men who conquered the
wilderness. They had the real stuff in them, those fellows!"

He took the battered volume--a pamphlet clumsily encased in boards, and
drew his hand across its rough sides caressingly.

"Another of my jokes on the State Library. The librarian told me I'd
never find a copy, and this was on top of a pile of trash in a
second-hand shop right here in this town. It cost me just fifty cents."

He snapped his bag shut on the new-found treasure and bade Dan good-bye
without referring again to the proposed employment.

Dan knew, as he left the hotel, that if an answer had been imperatively
demanded on the spot, he should have accepted Bassett's proposition; but
as he walked slowly away questions rose in his mind. Bassett undoubtedly
expected to reap some benefit from his services, and such services would
not, of course, be in the line of the law. They were much more likely to
partake of the function of journalism, in obtaining publicity for such
matters as Bassett wished to promulgate. The proposed new office at the
capital marked an advance of Bassett's pickets. He was abandoning old
fortifications for newer and stronger ones, and Dan's imagination
kindled at the thought of serving this masterful general as
aide-de-camp.

He took a long walk, thinking of Bassett's offer and trying to view it
from a philosophical angle. The great leaders in American politics had
come oftener than not from the country, he reflected. Fraserville, in
Dan's cogitations, might, as Bassett's star rose, prove to be another
Springfield or Fremont or Canton, shrouding a planet destined to a
brilliant course toward the zenith. He did not doubt that Bassett's
plans were well-laid; the state senator was farseeing and shrewd, and by
attaching himself to this man, whose prospects were so bright, he would
shine in the reflected glory of his successes. And the flattery of the
offer was not in itself without its magic.

However, as the days passed Dan was glad that he had taken time for
reflection. He began to minimize the advantages of the proposed
relationship, and to ponder the ways in which it would compel a certain
self-effacement. He had sufficient imaginat