had been familiar in another part of the country, and it
encouraged him. He was sure now of hospitality.

"Who are you?" the old man called.

"Mr. Grayson, the nominee for President of the United States, is in the
carriage, and I am his friend, one of the newspaper correspondents
travelling with him."

"Wait a minute."

The window was closed, and in a few moments the old man came out at the
front door. He carried the rifle on his shoulder, but Harley attributed
the fact to his haste at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name.

"My name is Simpson--Daniel Simpson," he said, hospitably. "Tell the
driver to put the horses in the barn."

He waved his hand towards a low building in the rear of his residence,
and then he invited the candidate and the correspondent to enter. He
looked curiously, but with reverence, at the candidate.

"You are really Jimmy Grayson," he said. "I'd know you off-hand by your
picture, which I guess hez been printed in ev'ry newspaper in the United
States. I 'low it's a powerful honor to me to hev you here."

"And it's a tremendous accommodation to us for you to take us," said
Jimmy Grayson, with his usual easy grace.

But Harley was looking at Simpson with a gaze no less intent than the
old man had bent upon Grayson. The accent and inflection of the host
were of a region far distant from Nebraska, but Harley, who was born
near that wild country, knew the long, lean, narrow type of face, with
the high cheek-bones and the watchful black eyes. Moreover, there was
something directly and personally familiar in the figure before him.

Under any circumstances the manner of the old man would have drawn the
attention of Harley, whose naturally keen observation was sharpened by
the training of his profession. The old man seemed abstracted. His
fingers moved absently on the stock of his rifle, and Harley inferred at
once that he had something of unusual weight on his mind.

"Me an' the ol' woman hev been settin' late," said Simpson. "When you
git ol' you don't sleep much. But it'll be a long time, Mr. Grayson,
before that fits you."

He led the way into a room better furnished than Harley had expected to
see. A coal fire smouldered on the hearth, and the arrangement of the
room showed some evidences of refinement and taste. An old woman was
bent over the fire, but she rose when the men entered, and turned upon
them a face which Harley knew at once to be that of one who had been
frightened by someth