however,
alter the immediate situation. The language of the Federal and State
Constitutions was all too explicit for the Republican minority; it was
only in recess that a governor might fill a vacancy; and beyond doubt
the general assembly was in town, lawfully brought from the farm, the
desk, the mine, and the factory, as though expressly to satisfy the
greed for power of a voracious Democracy.

Groups of members were retiring to quiet corners to discuss the crisis.
Bassett had already designated a committee room where he would meet his
followers and stanch adherents. Thatcher men had gone forth to seek
their chief. The Democrats would gain a certain moral strength through
the possession of a Senator in Congress. The man chosen to fill the
vacancy would have an almost irresistible claim upon the senatorship if
the Democrats should control the next legislature. It was worth fighting
for, that dead man's seat!

The full significance of the news was not wasted upon Representative
Harwood. The house adjourned promptly, and Dan hastened to write
telegrams. He wired Colonel Ramsay, of Aurora, to come to the capital on
the first train. Telegrams went flying that afternoon to every part of
Indiana.

Thatcher read the evening papers in Chicago and kept the wires hot while
he waited for the first train for Indianapolis.

One of his messages, addressed to Harwood, read:

"Breakfast with me to-morrow morning at my house. Strictly private.
This is your big chance."

Harwood, locked in his office in the Law Building, received this message
by telephone, and it aroused his ire. His relations with Thatcher did
not justify that gentleman in tendering him a strictly private
breakfast, nor did he relish having a big chance pointed out to him by
Mr. Thatcher. It cannot be denied that Dan, too, felt that Senator
Ridgefield had chosen a most unfortunate season for exposing himself to
the ravages of the pneumococcus. He kept away from the State House and
hotels that evening, having decided to take no part in the preliminary
skirmishes until he had seen Ramsay, who would bring a cool head and a
trained hand to bear upon this unforeseen situation.

He studied the newspapers as he ate breakfast alone at the University
Club early the next morning. The "Advertiser" had neatly divided its
first page between the Honorable Roger B. Ridgefield, dead in a far
country, and the Honorable Morton Bassett, who, it seemed, was very much
a