were
still not far apart.

"Without a word you left the woman that you are going to marry to look
at a lot of cattle."

"Why, Sylvia is only a child, an' we've been used to each other for
years. She understands."

"Yes, she will understand, or she isn't a woman," said Mrs. Grayson, and
if possible the biting irony of her tone increased. "You will see, too,
Mr. William Plummer, that one man at least did not neglect her for the
sake of some dusty cattle."

Mr. Plummer stared again at the pair on the platform, and a mingled look
of pain and apprehension came into his eyes.

"You surely can't mean anything of that kind! Why, little Sylvia has
promised--"

"All things are possible, Mr. Plummer. My husband is a lawyer, and I
have heard him quote often a maxim of the law which runs something like
this, 'He must keep who can.'"

She turned away and would not have another word to say to him then,
leaving Mr. Plummer in much perplexity and trouble.

Mrs. Grayson herself was in a similar perplexity and trouble throughout
the day. Her doubts about the letter she had written to "King" Plummer
increased. Perhaps it would have been wiser to let affairs take their
own course. The sight of the two brown heads and the two young faces on
the station platform had made her very thoughtful, and she drew
comparisons with "King" Plummer; there might be days in autumn which
resembled those of spring, but it was only a fleeting resemblance,
because autumn was itself, with its own coloring, its own fruits, and
its own days, and nothing could turn it into spring. "I will not meddle
again," she resolved, and then her mind was taken off the matter by an
incident in her husband's progress. In Nebraska the men left the train
for a few days, travelling by carriage, and here occurred the event
which created a great stir in its time.

IX

JIMMY GRAYSON'S SPELL

A night, after a beautiful, brown October day, came on dark and rainy,
with fierce winds off the Rocky Mountains; and Harley, who was in the
first carriage with the candidate, could barely see the heads of the
horses, gently rising and falling as they splashed through the mud.
Behind him he heard faintly the sound of wheels amid the wind and rain,
and he knew that the other correspondents and the politicians, who
always hung on the trail of Jimmy Grayson, shifting according to
locality, were following their leader in single file.

Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia had remained on t