nthia under the butternut tree,
and discovered Jethro behind the shed. It was usually Jethro's custom to
allow the other man to begin the conversation, no matter how trivial
the subject--a method which had commended itself to Mr. Bixby and other
minor politicians who copied him. And usually the other man played
directly into Jethro's hands. Jake Wheeler always did, and now, to cover
the awkwardness of the silence, he began on the Brampton celebration.

"They tell me Heth Sutton's a-goin' to make the address--seems prouder
than ever sence he went to Congress. I guess you'll tell him what to say
when the time comes, Jethro."

"Er--goin' to Clovelly after wool this week, Jake?"

"I kin go to-morrow," said Jake, scenting an affair.

"Er--goin' to Clovelly after wool this week, Jake?"

Jake reflected. He saw it was expedient that this errand should not
smell of haste.

"I was goin' to see Cutter on Friday," he answered.

"Er--if you should happen to meet Heth--"

"Yes," interrupted Jake.

"If by chance you should happen to meet Heth, or Bije" (Jethro knew that
Jake never went to Clovelly without a conference with one or the other
of these personages, if only to be able to talk about it afterward at
the store), "er--what would you say to 'em?"

"Why," said Jake, scratching his head for the answer, "I'd tell him you
was at Coniston."

"Think we'll have rain, Jake?" inquired Jethro, blandly.

Jake wended his way back to the store, filled with renewed admiration
for the great man. Jethro had given him no instructions whatever, could
deny before a jury if need be that he had sent him (Jake) to Clovelly to
tell Heth Sutton to come to Coniston for instructions on the occasion
of his Brampton speech. And Jake was filled with a mysterious importance
when he took his seat once more in the conclave.

Jake Wheeler, although in many respects a fool, was one of the most
efficient pack of political hounds that the state has ever known. By
six o'clock on Friday morning he was descending a brook valley on the
Clovelly side of the mountain, and by seven was driving between the
forest and river meadows of the Rajah's domain, and had come in sight of
the big white house with its somewhat pretentious bay-windows and Gothic
doorway; it might be dubbed the palace of these parts. The wide river
flowed below it, and the pastures so wondrously green in the morning sun
were dotted with fat cattle and sheep. Jake was content to borrow a