stood against the wall and over it hung a map of Indiana.
It was no unusual thing for Dan to find Bassett with his chair tipped
back, his eyes fixed upon the map. The oblong checkerboard formed by the
ninety-two counties of the Hoosier commonwealth seemed to have a
fascination for the man from Fraserville. When Dan found him thus in
rapt contemplation Bassett usually turned toward him a little
reluctantly and absently. It was thus that Morton Bassett studied the
field, like a careful general outlining his campaigns, with ample data
and charts before him.

This was an "off" year politically, or, more accurately, the statutes
called for no state election in Indiana. For every one knows that there
is no hour of the day in any year when politics wholly cease from
agitating the waters of the Wabash: somewhere some one is always
dropping in a pebble to see how far the ripple will widen. In the torrid
first days of September the malfeasance of the treasurer of an Ohio
River county afforded the Republican press an opportunity to gloat, the
official in question being, of course, a Democrat, and a prominent
member of the state committee.

For several days before the exposure Bassett had appeared fitfully at
the Whitcomb and in the Boordman Building. On the day that the
Republican "Advertiser" screamed delightedly over the Democratic scandal
in Ranger County, Bassett called Dan into his office. Bassett's name had
been linked to that of Miles, the erring treasurer, in the
"Advertiser's" headlines; and its leading editorial had pointed to the
defalcation as the sort of thing that inevitably follows the domination
of a party by a spoilsman and corruptionist like the senator from
Fraser.

Bassett indicated by a nod a copy of the "Advertiser" on his desk.

"The joke was on us this time. They're pinning Miles on me, and I guess
I'll have to wear him like a bouquet. I've been in Louisville fixing
this thing up and they won't have as much fun as they thought. It's a
simple case: Miles hadn't found out yet that corn margins are not
legitimate investments for a county's money. He's a good fellow and will
know better next time. We couldn't afford to have a member of the state
committee in jail, so I met the bondsmen and the prosecuting
attorney--he's a Republican--in Louisville and we straightened it all
out. The money's in bank down there. It proves to be after all a matter
of bookkeeping,--technical differences, which were reconciled r