ted in bitter hatred against the one who they knew
possessed the political power that brought these things to pass.

From that day Grizzly county saw an immense struggle for supremacy
between righteousness and vice, in the persons of the two political
leaders, Andrew Malden and "Col. Dick." Col. Dick was the most
clerical-looking man in the community. Always dressed in immaculate
white shirt, long coat and white tie, with his smooth face and
piercing black eyes, no stranger would have dreamed, as he received
his polite bow on the street, that this was the most notorious
character in Grizzly county, the manipulator of its politics, the
proprietor of its worst haunt, the most heartless man who ever stood
behind a bar in a mining camp. But Richard Lamar--or, as all
familiarly knew him, Col. Dick, in honor of his traditional war
record--was all this. For nearly twenty years he had stood coolly
behind that bar mixing drinks and planning politics. All men feared
him. Only one man ever refused to drink with him, so far as is known,
and then everybody who could, steered clear of jury duty on that case,
and those who could not escape pronounced his death due to
heart-failure.

The election the next year was the most hotly contested ever held in
the county. Job used all the personal influence he had in the Yellow
Jacket; Andrew Malden himself personally canvassed every house in the
county where there was the slightest hope. Tony said, "Bress de Lawd!
guess de old Marse and de gray team done gone de rounds, an' ebery dog
in de county knows 'em!"

Dan, poor Dan, limping through the crowd on crutches, was Col. Dick's
chief lieutenant, and used with the utmost shrewdness the "cash" which
the saloon interest placed at his disposal. He knew by election day
the price of every salable vote in the county. The night before
election excitement ran high; a scurrilous sheet came out with
cartoons of Andrew Malden and "Gambler Teale's kid." All the hard
things that could be said were said. That night, before an audience
that filled the old church and hung on the windows and packed the
steps, Job made a speech which thrilled the souls of them all. He told
his life story; told of what rum had done for him and his, told of
Yankee Sam and the scene at his death, till hardened men wiped away
the tears. No cut-and-dried temperance lecture was his. He talked of
life as all knew it, of Gold City and facts no one could deny; talked
till waves of de