vote
was cast already, so eager were both sides for victory. These bulletins,
more or less vague as they came from time to time, were posted on a
blackboard, and their vagueness did not keep them from arousing the
keenest interest.

Dexter, the chairman of the state committee, a thin-faced man who talked
little, shook his head ominously.

"I don't like the enormous vote they are polling so early in the big
cities," he said. "It shows that the band of traitors led by Goodnight,
Crayon, and their kind are getting in their work."

"But we don't know it to be a fact," said Harley, resolved that the
cloud should have its silver lining. "For every man in that crowd eager
to cast a vote against Jimmy Grayson, there may be one eager to cast a
vote for him."

Dexter shook his head again, and with increased gloom. Harley's argument
might appeal to his hopes, but not to his judgment.

"I'm sorry that Jimmy Grayson made his attack upon that committee," he
said. "It spoke well for his courage and honesty, but it was bad
politics."

"I think that courage and honesty are good politics," said Harley, and
he left Dexter to his pessimistic thoughts.

The rooms were growing too close, and there was an absence of definite
news, so he went again into the open air. The character of the day was
unchanged; it was still dark with ominous clouds trooping across the
sky, and the wind had grown more bitter.

Harley now found himself under the strain of an extreme anxiety. He did
not realize until this day how deeply his own feelings were interwoven
with the fate of the campaign, and how bleak the night would look to him
and Sylvia if Mr. Grayson were beaten--and he knew that the odds were
against him; despite himself, he, a man of calm mind and strong will,
was a prey to nerves. He began to shrink at the thought of the count of
the votes, and to fear the first real bulletins.

He walked about the streets awhile to steady himself, and then looked at
his watch. It was past noon there, but later in the East and earlier in
the West; yet the bulk of the ballots were cast already. In three or
four hours more the tabulated vote in the states farthest east would
begin to arrive, and they would listen to the opening chapter of the
story, a story which he feared to hear.

Absorbed in his thoughts, he had strolled unconsciously towards the
country. There, at a turn of the road, he met two people in a light
wagon, and they were the candidate and