fact; and the young man wondered if it were characteristic
either of "the plain people," as he called them, or of circus riders as
a class, that their minds should go habitually unclothed yet unashamed.

"Thank you, sir," said the Governor without effusion; and he asked: "Did
you hurt yourself, Patty?" while he bent over and laid his hand on her
ankle.

A note of tenderness passed into his voice as he turned to the girl; and
when she answered after a minute, Stephen recognized the same tone of
affectionate playfulness that she used when she spoke of him.

"Not much," she replied carelessly. Then she held out the drooping
pigeon. "I found this bird. Is there anything we can do for it?"

The Governor took the bird from her, and examined it under the light
with the manner of brisk confidence which directed his slightest action.
The man, for all his restless activity, appeared to be without excess or
exaggeration when it was a matter of practical detail. He apparently
employed his whole efficient and enterprising mind on the incident of
the bird.

"The wings aren't broken," he said presently, lifting his head, "but it
is weak from hunger and exhaustion," and he rang the bell for Abijah.
"Rice and water and a warm basket," he ordered when the old negro
appeared. "You had better keep it in the house until it recovers." Then
dismissing the subject, he turned back to Stephen.

"Well, I am glad to see you, Mr. Culpeper," he said. "You had a hard
beginning, but, as they used to tell me when I was a kid, a hard
beginning makes a good ending."

For the first time a smile softened his face, and the roving blue gleam
danced blithely in his eyes. A moment before the young man had thought
the Governor's face harsh and ugly. Now he remembered that the Judge had
said "the man was not half bad to look at if you caught him smiling."
Yes, he had a charm of his own, and that charm had swept him forward
over every obstacle to the place he had reached. A single gift,
indefinable yet unerring--the ability to make men believe absurdities,
as John Benham had once said--and the material disadvantages of poverty
and ignorance were brushed aside like trivial impediments. A strange
power, and a dangerous one in unscrupulous hands, the young man
reflected.

"I remember your face," pursued the Governor, while his smile faded--was
brevity, after all, the secret of its magic? "You were at one of my
speeches last autumn, and you sat in the front