show would I stand? Feeling in town is running strong
against radical ideas."

"I know, I know. But you are a fighter, and with your energy you might
turn the current. Besides, something big may happen before election."

That same thought had been pulsing excitedly in Bruce's brain these
last few minutes. If Katherine could only get her evidence!

Bruce moved to the window and looked out so that that keen one eye of
Blind Charlie might not perceive the exultation he could no longer
keep out of his face. Bruce did not see the tarnished dome of the
Court House--nor the grove of broad elms, shrivelled and dusty--nor
the enclosing quadrangle of somnolent, drooping farm horses. He was
seeing this town shaken as by an explosion. He was seeing cataclysmic
battle, with Blind Charlie become a nonentity, Blake completely
annihilated, and himself victorious at the front. And, dream of his
dreams! he was seeing himself free to reshape Westville upon his own
ideals.

"Well, what do you say?" asked Blind Charlie.

Controlling himself, Bruce turned about.

"I accept, upon the conditions you have named. But at the first sign
of an attempt to limit those conditions, I throw the whole business
overboard."

"There will be no such attempt, so we can consider the matter
settled." Blind Charlie held out his hand, which Bruce, with some
hesitation, accepted. "I congratulate you, I congratulate myself, I
congratulate the party. With you as leader, I think we've all got a
fighting chance to win."

They discussed details of Bruce's candidacy, they discussed the
convention; and a little later Blind Charlie departed. Bruce, fists
deep in trousers pockets, paced up and down his little office, or sat
far down in his chair gazing at nothing, in excited, searching
thought. Billy Harper and other members of the staff, who came in to
him with questions, were answered absently with monosyllables. At
length, when the Court House clock droned the hour of five through the
hot, burnt-out air, Bruce washed his hands and brawny fore-arms at the
old iron sink in the rear of the reporter's room, put on his coat, and
strode up Main Street. But instead of following his habit and turning
off into Station Avenue, where was situated the house in which he and
Old Hosie ate and slept and had their quarrels, he continued his way
and turned into an avenue beyond--on his face the flush of defiant
firmness of the bold man who finds himself doing the exact thing