olitics the sport of the great unwashed," observed Anne.
"He says it gives the lower class a substitute for mental activity and
demagogues a chance to exploit them."

"Does he?" inquired Boone drily.

"Boone"--Anne's eyes filled suddenly with a grave anxiety--"aren't you
really working so hard about all this business--because Uncle Tom is so
deeply involved in it and because you think he's in some danger?"

Boone leaned forward to right a twisted martingale, and when he
straightened up he answered slowly: "I suppose any prominent man in a
hard fight may be in--some danger, but he doesn't seem to take it very
seriously."

"Why," she demanded, "can't men oppose each other in politics without
getting rabid about it?"

"They can--when it's just politics. This is more than that, according to
the way we feel about it."

"Why?"

"Because we charge that the city hall is in the hands of plunderers and
that for tribute they give criminals a free hand in preying on the
citizens."

"And yet," demurred the girl, with puzzled brow, "men like Judge McCabe
laugh at all this 'reform hysteria,' as they call it. They aren't
criminals."

Boone nodded. "There are good men in the city hall, too, but they
belong to the old system that puts the party label above everything
else."

They reached the brow of the hill and stood, their horses breathing
heavily from the climb, looking off across the country where on the far
side other knobs went trooping away to meet the sky.

The bridles hung loose, and the girl sat looking off over leagues of
landscape with grave eyes, while Boone of course looked at her. The
beauty of the green earth and blue sky was to his adoration only a
background for her nearer beauty.

The boy, as he gazed at the delicate modelling of her brow and chin,
wondered what was going on in her thoughts, for there was a wistful
droop at the corner of her lips; yet presently, even while it lingered
there, a twinkle riffled in her eyes.

"I ought to be all wrought up, I suppose, over this crusade on
wickedness," she announced, though with no sense of guilt in her voice,
"and yet if it weren't for my friends being in it, I doubt whether it
would mean much to me--. I've got too much politics of my own to worry
about."

"Politics of your own?" he questioned. "Why, Anne, your monarchy is
absolute; there isn't a voice of anarchy or rebellion anywhere in your
gracious majesty's realm--and your realm is your whole world.