It is the complications with men--the
relations with people--that weary and sicken and break the heart! I've
tried to put up a clean record, a straight fight; I've tried to give
honest service, and it seems as if the odds were all against me!"

"What do you want?" asked Danvers, more moved at the sight of his
friend's distress than the need of his country.

"We want to put you in the Legislature as the senator from Chouteau
County!" cried Latimer, flushed and eager. "If only a better class of
men would go into politics! I can't blame them for wanting to keep out,
and yet what is our country coming to? What can one man do alone? If you
or the doctor or men of that character were in office, it wouldn't be so
hard a fight. And with you in Helena, Phil----"

The familiar name, in the soft voice of the Southerner, stirred the
heart of Danvers like a caress. He was lonely, too--he had not realized
how much so, till the hand of his friend was stretched out to him, not
only for aid, but for companionship. His heart throbbed as it had not
done since a woman fired his boyish imagination. In the long years on
the range he had grown indifferent, and rejoiced in his lack of feeling.
Now he was waking, he was ready to take up his work in the world of men,
ready to open his heart at the call of one who would be his mate.

"I might be induced to run, since you put it so strongly," said Danvers,
with a lightness that did not conceal from either of his friends the
depth of his feeling.

"Thank you, Phil."

Danvers took the thin, nervous hand extended to him, and held it with a
grasp that sent courage into the heart of Judge Latimer. It was a hand
that had guided bucking bronchos and held lassoed steers, and the man
weary with life's battles knew that a friend had come to his aid who
would blench at no enemy.

"Do you need any more men?" inquired Danvers, with a tone of assurance
and natural leadership that amazed them both.

"Do we _need_ them? Can you produce any more? That is the question,"
said Latimer.

"There's always O'Dwyer, of course!" laughed Danvers.

"Is he as devoted as ever?" inquired Latimer.

"The same old worshipper," declared the doctor. "And, by George! now you
speak of it, he wouldn't make a bad representative!"

The three men talked over the situation and planned a brief campaign,
sending Arthur Latimer home, cheered and strengthened. Nevertheless,
after they had said good-bye at the station, the doctor