o voce: "I reckon if he'd
stayed in himself, Colonel, they wouldn't have had the courage to tackle
him. They might have hit him with that whole stockin'ful of mud they've
been collectin', and he wouldn't have staggered. But when they go to hit
the young feller, there, with it, he's down and out."

"Eh!" barked the magnate of Canibas, catching the last words. "I am?
Not by a--" He broke off, ashamed of wasting effort in mere boasts.
"Presson," he went on, evidently now intent on proceeding according to
the plan that he had been meditating, "you've got your own interest in
seeing me keep this district in line, haven't you?"

"You're the head of our row of bricks," bleated the chairman. "We've got
to keep you standing--got to do it."

"Then we'll get busy." The old man threw back his shoulders. "Carrying a
caucus the way we've probably got to carry this one at the last gasp
isn't going to be a genteel entertainment." He tapped a stubby finger on
the honorable chairman's shirt-front. "I'm going to raise some very
particular hell." He turned to his lieutenant. "The boys right in the
village, here, our own bunch, are all right, of course, Sylvester?"

"Stickin' to you like pitch in a spruce crack, as usual. It's the
outsiders from the other sections in the district. They hadn't known
what a caucus was till them ramrodders got after 'em."

"Can't they be handled now that they're in here?"

"Have been lied to already too skilful and thorough. Me and Whisperin'
Urban and a few others of the boys blew the haydust out of their ears,
and tried to inject the usual--but they can't hold any more. They've got
to be unloaded first--and there ain't time to do it."

"And you're pretty sure they can swing the organization when the caucus
is called?" demanded the Duke.

"Two to one--and our men ain't got a smell on that check-list they've
doctored. Why, they've even got _me_ marked 'Socialist.' You can imagine
what they've done to the rest of the boys. It's one o'clock now." (He
had looked at four watches, one after the other, a part of his
dickerer's stock-in-trade.) "In an hour and fifteen minutes they'll be
organized and votin' by check-list. I ain't a man to give up easy,
Squire, but I swear it looks as though they had us headed so far on the
homestretch that we ain't near enough to trip 'em or bust a sulky wheel
on 'em."

"You've got more than an hour's leeway." It was a soft lisp of sound
that startled the group. The man had