oup seemed to lose much of its vividness, color, and variety when
the women departed, but they settled down to work, the most intense and
exacting that Harley had ever known. All the great qualities of the
candidate came out; he seemed to be made of iron, and on the stump he
was without an equal; if any one in the audience was ready with a
troublesome question, he was equally ready with an apt reply; nor could
they disturb his good humor; and his smiling irony!--the rash fool who
sought to deride him always found the laugh turned upon himself.

Throughout the East the party was stirred to mighty enthusiasm, and
their antagonists, who had thought the election a foregone conclusion,
were roused from their security. Again the combat deepened and entered
upon a yet hotter phase. Meanwhile Mr. Goodnight, Mr. Crayon, and their
powerful faction within the party, kept quiet for the time. Mr. Grayson
was not yet treading on their toes, but he knew, and his friends knew,
that they were watching every motion of his with a hundred eyes.
Churchill's _Monitor_ was constantly coming, laden with suggestion,
advice, and warning, and Churchill himself alternately wore a look of
importance and disappointment. No one ever made the slightest reference
to his wise despatches. He had expected to be insulted, to be
persecuted, to be a martyr for duty's sake, and, lo! he was treated
always with courtesy, but his great work was ignored; he felt that they
must see it, but then they might be too dull to notice its edge and
weight. He now drew a certain consolation from his silent suffering, and
strengthened himself anew for the task which he felt required a delicate
and thoughtful mind.

Harley wrote several times to Sylvia Morgan, both at Boise and at her
aunt's home--long, careful letters, in which he strove to confine
himself to the purely narrative form, and to make these epistles
interesting as documents. He spoke of many odd personal details by the
way, and even at the distance of two thousand miles he continued to
touch the campaign with the breath of life, although told at
second-hand.

The replies came in due time, brief, impersonal, thanking him for his
trouble, and giving a little news of Mrs. Grayson, "King" Plummer, and
herself. Harley was surprised to see with what terseness, strength, and
elegance she expressed herself. "Perhaps there is a force in those
mountains which unconsciously teaches simplicity and power," he found
himsel