f the wide-eaved passenger
station. A thunderous tremolo, dominating the distant band music, thrilled
on the still air, and the extended arm of the station semaphore with its
two dangling lanterns wagged twice.

"My train," said Loring, quickening his step.

"No," Kent corrected. "It is a special from the west, bringing a Bucks
crowd to the political rally. Number Three isn't due for fifteen minutes
yet, and she is always late."

They mounted the steps to the station platform in good time to meet the
three-car special as it came clattering in over the switches, and
presently found themselves in the thick of the crowd of debarking
ralliers.

It was a mixed masculine multitude, fairly typical of time, place and
occasion; stalwart men of the soil for the greater part, bearded and
bronzed and rough-clothed, with here and there a range-rider in
picturesque leathern shaps, sagging pistols and wide-flapped sombrero.

Loring stood aside and put up his eye-glasses. It was his first sight near
at hand of the untrammeled West _in puris naturalibus_, and he was finding
the spectacle both instructive and diverting. Looking to Kent for
fellowship he saw that his companion was holding himself stiffly aloof;
also, he remarked that none of the boisterous partizans flung a word of
recognition in Kent's direction.

"Don't you know any of them?" he asked.

Kent's reply was lost in the deep-chested bull-bellow of a cattleman from
the Rio Blanco.

"Hold on a minute, boys, before you scatter! Line up here, and let's give
three cheers and a tail-twister for next-Governor Bucks! Now,
then--_everybody_! Hip, hip----"

The ripping crash of the cheer jarred Loring's eye-glasses from their
hold, and he replaced them with a smile. Four times the ear-splitting
shout went up, and as the echoes of the "tiger" trailed off into silence
the stentorian voice was lifted again.

"Good enough! Now, then; three groans for the land syndicates, alien
mortgagees, and the Western Pacific Railroad, by grabs! and to hell with
'em!"

The responsive clamor was a thing to be acutely remembered--sustained,
long-drawn, vindictive; a nerve-wrenching pandemonium of groans, yelpings
and cat-calls, in the midst of which the partizans shuffled into loose
marching order and tramped away townward.

"That answers your question, doesn't it?" said Kent, smiling sourly. "If
not, I can set it out for you in words. The Western Pacific is the
best-hated corporation thi