ble leader in this great contest."

If Handy ever went to the city attorney's office to look after Mrs.
Worthington's lawsuit, no one knew it. He smiled wisely when asked how
the suit was progressing, and one day John Markley--who during the life
of Ezra Worthington, hated him with a ten-horse-power hate and loaded it
onto his widow's shoulders and the Worthington bank which she
inherited--John Markley called Handy into the back room of the Markley
Mortgage Company, and, when Handy passed the cashier's window going out,
he cashed a check signed by John Markley for a thousand dollars on which
was inscribed "for legal services in assisting the county attorney in
the hitching rack case."

Handy had arrived at a point where he feared nothing. He seemed to
believe that he lived a charmed life and never would get caught. He
bought extra copies of the _Statesman_, which was booming him for
Congress, and sent them over the Congressional District by the
thousands. He went to Topeka in his high silk hat and his New York
clothes, gave out interviews on the causes of the flurry in the money
market, and, desiring further advertisement, gave a banquet for the
newspaper men of the capital which cost him a hundred dollars. So he
became a great man. At home he assumed a patronising air to the people
about Charley Hedrick. And one night in Smith's cigar store, just to be
talking, he said that he didn't get so much of Mrs. Worthington's money
as people thought, for part of it had to go to "square old Charley
Hedrick." Hedrick was John Markley's attorney, and he had taken an
active part in helping the county attorney prosecute the street
commissioners. Naturally Handy's remark stirred up the town. It was two
weeks, however, in getting to Hedrick, and when it came the man turned
black and seemed to be swallowing a pint of emotional language before he
spoke. And there Abner Handy's doom was sealed; though Hedrick did not
make the sentence public.

Now, it is well known in our county that the country people are slow to
wrath. They were two months finding out beyond a question of doubt that
Abner Handy had accepted Mrs. Worthington's money to act against them,
but when they knew this there was no hope for Handy among them. They are
a quiet people, and make no noise. For a month, only Charley Hedrick and
the grocers and the hardware men, with whom the farmers trade, knew the
truth about Handy's standing in the county. Hedrick bided his time.