chine abuses in the hands of machine hirelings--of
maintaining a government by intimidation and force, and he too wondered
how, if these charges were tinctured with any colour of truth, a
free-hearted man could stand aside from the combat. He knew too that
Colonel Wallifarro did not indulge in unconsidered libels.

At the door, when the sweltering meeting ended, he noticed close behind
him a man talking to a policeman.

"These here silk-stocking guys buttin' in gives me a pain," announced
that heated critic. "They spill out an earful of this Sunday-school guff
before election day, but when the strong-arm boys get busy they fade
away--believe me, the poor boobs fade out!"

"They ain't practical," agreed the patrolman judicially, and Boone made
a mental note of his badge number. "They think one and one make two--but
we know that if you fix a couple of ones right it's just as easy to make
an eleven with 'em."

Boone and Anne had gone horseback riding one afternoon that September,
and it was a different sort of excursion from those that they had taken
together in the mountains.

The boy was mounted on Colonel Wallifarro's saddle mare, and the girl on
a high-headed four-year-old from the same stable. They were not picking
their way now through tangled trails that led upward, but were cantering
along the level speedway toward the park set on a hill five miles south
of the city. There, at the fringe of a line of knobs, was the only
approach to be found in this table-flat land to the heights which they
both loved.

These hills were only little brothers to the loftier peaks of the
Cumberlands--but the air was full of Indian summer softness, and the
horses under them were full of mettle--and they themselves were in love.

"Boone," demanded the girl, drawing down to a sedate pace, after a
brisk gallop that had lathered the flanks and withers of their mounts,
"what is it that interests you so in this campaign? You can't even vote
here, can you?"

The young man shook his head, and now the smile of humour which had once
been rare upon his face flashed there--because he had reached a point
where his development was beginning to take some account of perspectives
and balances.

"No, I can't vote here--but I can get as bitter over their fights as if
they were my own. I couldn't explain why I'm interested any more than a
hound could tell why he wants to run with the pack. It's just that the
game calls a man."

"Morgan calls p