he Chicago Express sleeper--to lie awake all night
staring at the phantoms of ruin that moved in dire panorama before me.
In every great affair there is a crisis at which one must stake all upon
a single throw. I had staked all upon Wall Street. Without its
contributions, Woodruff's arrangements could not be carried out.

* * * * *

When I descended at the Fredonia station I found De Milt waiting for me.
He had news that was indeed news. I shall give it here more
consecutively than my impatience for the event permitted him to give it
to me.

About ten days before, a paragraph in one of Burbank's "pilgrimage"
speeches had been twisted by the reporter so that it seemed a personal
attack upon Scarborough. As Burbank was a stickler for the etiquette of
campaigning, he not only sent out a denial and a correction but also
directed De Milt to go to Scarborough's home at Saint X, Indiana, and
convey the explanation in a personal message. De Milt arrived at Saint X
at eight in the evening. As he was leaving the parlor car he saw a man
emerge from its drawing-room, make a hasty descent to the platform,
hurriedly engage a station hack and drive away. De Milt had an amazing
memory for identities--something far rarer than memory merely for faces.
He was convinced he knew that man; and being shrewd and quick of
thought, he jumped into a trap and told the driver to follow the hack
which was just disappearing. A few minutes' driving and he saw it turn
in at a gateway.

"Whose place is that?" he asked.

"The old Gardiner homestead," was the answer. "President Scarborough
lives there."

De Milt did not discuss this rather premature entitling of Senator
Scarborough. He said: "Oh--I've made a mistake," descended and sent his
trap away. Scarborough's house was quiet, not a soul about, lights in
only a few windows. De Milt strolled in at the open gates and, keeping
out of view, made a detour of the gardens, the "lay" of which he could
see by the starlight. He was soon in line with the front door--his man
was parleying with a servant. "Evidently he's not expected," thought my
chief of publicity.

Soon his man entered. De Milt, keeping in the shadows, moved round the
house until he was close under open windows from which came light and
men's voices. Peering through a bush he saw at a table-desk a man whom
he recognized as Senator Scarborough. Seated opposite him, with a very
uneasy, deprecating expressio