t
unhappily the crisis had arrived, and in all probability it could not be
postponed. None the less, the vice-president tried craftily for the
postponement.

"You're asking a good deal, Blount, and you don't seem to realize it.
You are practically demanding that we lay down our arms and put a
possible enemy in the saddle on the eve of a battle. If we should agree
to meet the people of this State half-way, as you suggest, what
guarantee have we that we won't be compelled to go all the way?"

The fine-lined wrinkles were appearing again at the corners of the
hereditary Blount eyes.

"You can't quite rise to the occasion, can you, Hardwick?" smiled the
boss. "You'd like to behave yourself and be good, of course; but you
want to be cocksure beforehand that it isn't going to cost too much."

"Well, anyway, I'm going to ask for a little time in which to consider
it," was the vice-president's final word.

"Sure! You have all the time there is between now and the election. Go
on and do your considering. I've told you what I'm going to do."

"You know very well that we can't allow you to do what you propose. With
an unfriendly attorney-general we might as well throw up our hands first
as last."

"All right; it's right pointedly up to you," was the calm reply.

The vice-president rose and dusted the cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve
with the table-napkin. When he looked up, the heavy frown was again
furrowing itself between his eyes.

"Let me know when your son is coming and I'll try to make it possible to
meet him here," he said rather gratingly.

And thus, at the precise moment when Richard Gantry, some three thousand
miles away to the eastward, was declaring his weariness and his
intention of going to bed, the two-man conference in the Inter-Mountain
private dining-room was closed.

III

A FALSE GALLOP OF MEMORIES

As a churlish fate decreed, it turned out that Evan Blount was not to
have Gantry for a travelling companion beyond Chicago. On the second day
of westward faring the railroad traffic manager, whose business followed
him like an implacable Nemesis wherever he went, had wire instructions
to stop and confer with his vice-president in the Illinois metropolis.
Hence, on the morning of the following day, Blount continued his journey
alone.

Twenty-odd hours later the returning expatriate had crossed his Rubicon;
in other words, his train had rolled through the majestic steel bridge
spanning the cla