patch about
it, but the despatch must be very long and full. And I suppose, too,
that I shall have to tell it to the other fellows when we reach the
town."

The candidate sighed.

"I know you are right," he said, "but I wish you did not have to do it.
The story puts me in a sensational light. It seems as if I were turning
aside from the great issues of a campaign for personal adventure."

"It was forced upon you."

"So it was, but that fact does not take from it the sensational look."

Harley was silent. He knew that Mr. Grayson's point was well made, but
he knew also that he must send the despatch.

The candidate made no further reference to the subject, and five minutes
later they saw horsemen rise out of the plain and gallop towards them.
As Harley had said, a presidential nominee was not lost in the dark and
the storm every night, and this little Western town was mightily
perturbed when Mr. Grayson failed to arrive. The others had come in
safely, but already all the morning newspapers of the country had
published the fact that the candidate was lost, swallowed up somewhere
on the dark prairie. And Mr. Grayson's instinct was correct, too,
because mingled with the wonder and speculation was much criticism. It
was boldly said in certain supercilious circles that he had probably
turned aside on an impulse to look after some minor matter, perhaps
something that was purely personal that had nothing to do with the
campaign. Churchill, late the night before, had sent to the _Monitor_ a
despatch written in his most censorious manner, in that vein of
reluctant condemnation that so well suited his sense of superiority. He
was loath to admit that the candidate was proving inadequate to his high
position, but the circumstances indicated it, and the proof was becoming
cumulative. He also sent a telegram to the Honorable Mr. Goodnight, in
New York, and the burden of it was the need of a restraining force, a
force near at hand, and able to meet every evil with instant cure.

But the Western horsemen who met Jimmy Grayson--they clung to their
affectionate "Jimmy"--were swayed by no such emotions. They repeated a
shout of welcome, and wanted to know how and where he had passed the
night, to all of which questions the candidate, with easy humor,
returned ready and truthful replies, although he did not say anything
for the present about the adventure of the old man and of the young one
who was now the old one's son-in-law.

T