or-bearers
extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the
hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's
most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it
all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline
Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in
the cruel slavery of Indian captivity.

I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at the
audience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiar
face. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who was
watching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master of
ceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst of
Springvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him any
more than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. And
yet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted his
appearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-dignified. Education
had a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the manner
of the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time the
travelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feet
after his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlessly
in the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and finding
none, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself to
retreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure was
written all over his banner.

The next speaker was a politician of the rip-roaring variety who pounded
the table and howled his enthusiasm, whose logic was all expressed in
the short-story form, sometimes witty, sometimes far-fetched and often
profane. He interested me least of all, and my mind abstracted by the
Tillhurst feature went back again to the Plains. I could not realize
what was going on when the politician had finished amid uproarious
applause, and the chairman was introducing the next speaker, until I
caught my father's name, coupled with lavish praise of his merits. There
was a graceful folding of his mantle on the shoulders of "his gifted
son, just out of Harvard, but a true child of Kansas, with a record for
heroism in the war time, and a growing prominence in his district, and
an altogether good-headed, good-hearted, and, the ladies all agree,
good-looking young man, the handsome giant of the Neosho." And I foun