tel door, as the man and boy passed it, emerged two gentlemen
who were clothed in the smoother raiment of "Down below," and Boone
pointed them out to his companion.

"Who _air_ they, Asa?" he whispered, and his kinsman carelessly
responded:

"One of 'em's named Masters. He's a coal-mine boss--but I hain't never
seed t'other one, afore now."

Strolling along the narrow plank runway that did service as a sidewalk,
the boy glimpsed also the mysterious stranger who had ridden in on a
mule, with a canvas-covered sword at his saddle ring.

Then the fanfare of the band fell silent and a thin figure in an ancient
frock coat stepped forward on the platform itself and raised its hands
to shout: "Fellow Citizens and Kentuckians of Marlin County!"

Ranged importantly behind the draped bunting stood the corporal's guard
of native Democratic leaders--leaders who were well-nigh without
followers--and who now stood as local sponsors for the Candidate
himself.

Boone caught his breath and listened, his eager eyes conspicuous among
the immobile and stolid faces of the unresponsive throng as the speaker
let flow his words of encomium.

Seeking to compensate by his own vehemence for the unreceptiveness of
his audience, the thin master of ceremonies heaped the Ossa of
fulsomeness upon the Pelion of praise. "And now, men of Marlin," he
shouted in his memorized peroration, "now I have the distinguished
honour of presenting to you the man whose loins are girt in the people's
fight--the--the--ahem,--unterrified champeen of the Commonwealth's
yeomanry--. Gentlemen, the next Governor of Kentucky!"

A peroration without applause is like a quick-step beat upon a loose
drum-head, and an the local sponsor stood back in the dispiriting
emptiness of dead silence--unbroken by a single hand-clap--his face
fell. For several moments that quiet hung like a paralyzing rebuff, then
from the outskirts of the crowd a liquor-thickened voice bellowed--"Next
gov'nor--of hell!"

To the front of the platform, with that derisive introduction,
calmly--even coldly, stepped a dark, smooth-shaven man, over whose
stocky shoulders and well-rounded chest a frock coat was tightly
buttoned.

For a while the Candidate stood looking out, gauging his audience, and
from him there seemed to emanate an assurance of power before his lips
parted. A heavy lock of coal-black hair fell over his forehead, across
almost disdainfully cold eyes went sooty lashes, and dark brows