tion? Is it right?"

"Arthur," said the younger, feebly, "under that appeal I must speak
truthfully. The claim is irregular; perhaps it has been paid already.
There is no time for investigation. I have stocked the cards, and the
trick must be taken at once or never. You have this alternative. I can
take you off that committee, and I have a man in reversion who will
get the post and pass the claim."

The stature of Arthur MacNair seemed to expand, and he became the
positive spirit of the room.

"Not so," he said; "it shall not pass, Elk MacNair, neither by my help
nor by any other man's! You have acknowledged to me that there is no
justice in this thing. You have made me a party to a fraud. You shall
know that the only oath I came here to take is that of allegiance to
the interests of the country. No brotherhood, no sympathy, no
ambition, no pity, nothing shall be able to swerve me from my full
duty."

"What would you do, fanatic?" cried Elk MacNair.

"I will denounce that claim upon the floor of Congress, and couple
with the denunciation the story of this infamous proposal you have
made to a member of Congress."

The younger brother gave a laugh.

"What nonsense, Arthur," he said. "If you expect to find any large
class of Americans who will appreciate such heroism, exhibited at the
sacrifice of your own blood and family, you do not know your
countrymen in these days. The only men who deal in sentiment in our
time are demagogues, who never feel it. A sneer will go up from all
the circles of the capital, from all the presses of the land, at a man
who seeks, in a political age, to play the part of the elder Brutus."

"Miserable, lost, dishonored man!" said Arthur MacNair. "In the
valleys of my State, in the quiet farming districts all through the
Union, among the hard-working, the penurious, and the plain--such as
you and your class despise--there are armies of men who would rise and
march upon this capital if they appreciated the whole of the scene in
which you have figured to-day! You would steal the money of the
people that you may buy a character and a position among your
countrymen. Shame upon the man who would defend the acquisition of
such booty to wed the woman he loves."

Every word which Arthur MacNair had uttered, and most of all the last,
cut like a knife into the pride of Elk MacNair.

"I thought I was pleading with my brother," he said hoarsely, "not to
a stone. I shall say no more. I have placed