Part 20

Harley sought sleep as early as possible that night, because he would need all his strength for the next day, which was to be a record-breaker. A tremendous programme had been mapped out for Jimmy Grayson, and Harley, although aware of the candidate's great endurance, wondered how he would ever stand it. They were to cut the state from southeast to northwest, a distance of more than four hundred miles, and twenty-four speeches were to be made by the way. Fresh from war, Harley did not remember any more arduous journey, and, like an old campaigner, he prepared for it as best he could.

It was not yet daylight when they were awakened for the start of the great day. A cold wind moaned around the hamlet as they ate their breakfast, and then hastened, valise in hand, and still half asleep, to the train, which stood steam up and ready to be off. They found several men already on board, and Churchill, when he saw them, uttered the brief word, "Natives!" They were typical men of the plains, thin, dry, and weather-beaten, and the correspondents at first paid but little attention to them. It was common enough for some local committeeman to take along a number of friends for a half-day or so, in order that they might have a chance to gratify their curiosity and show their admiration for the candidate.

But the attention of Harley was attracted presently by one of the strangers, a smallish man of middle age, with a weak jaw and a look curiously compounded of eagerness and depression.

The stranger's eye met Harley's, and, encouraged by his friendly look, he crossed the aisle and spoke to the correspondent.

"You are one of them newspaper fellers that travels with Grayson, ain't you?" he asked.

Harley admitted the charge.

"And you see him every day?" continued the little man, admiringly.

"Many times a day."

"My! My! Jest to think of your comin' away out here to take down what our Jimmy Grayson says, so them fellers in New York can read it! I'll bet he makes Wall Street shake. I wish I was like you, mister, and could be right alongside Jimmy Grayson every day for weeks and weeks, and could hear every word he said while he was poundin' them fellers in Wall Street who are ruinin' our country. He is the greatest man in the world. Do you reckon I could get to speak to him and jest tech his hand?"

"Why, certainly," replied Harley. He was moved by the little man's childlike and absolute faith and his reverence for Jimmy Grayson as a demigod. It was not without pathos, and Harley at once took him into the next car and introduced him to Grayson, who received him with the natural cordiality that never deserted him. Plover, the little man said was his name--William Plover, of Kalapoosa, Choctaw County. He regarded Grayson with awe, and, after the hand-shake, did not speak. Indeed, he seemed to wish no more, and made himself still smaller in a corner, where he listened attentively to everything that Grayson said.

He also stood in the front row at each stopping-place, his eyes fixed on Grayson's face while the latter made his speech. The candidate, by-and-by, began to notice him there. It is often a habit with those who have to speak much in public to fix the eye on some especially interested auditor and talk to him directly. It assists in a sort of concentration, and gives the orator a willing target.

Grayson now spoke straight to Plover, and Harley watched how the little man's emotions, as shown in his face, reflected in every part the orator's address. There was actual fire in his eyes, whenever Grayson mentioned that ogre, Wall Street, and tears rose when the speaker depicted the bad condition of the Western farmer.

"Wouldn't I like to go on to Washington with Jimmy Grayson when he takes charge of the government!" exclaimed Plover to Harley when this speech was finished--"not to take a hand myself, but jest to see him make things hum! Won't he make them fat fellers in Wall Street squeal! He'll have the Robber Barons squirmin' on the griddle pretty quick, an' wheat'll go straight to a dollar a bushel, sure! I can see it now!"

His exultation and delight lasted all the morning; but in the afternoon the depressed, crushed feeling which Harley had noticed at first in his look seemed to get control.

Although his interest in Grayson's speeches and his devout admiration did not decrease, Plover's melancholy grew, and Harley by-and-by learned the cause of it from another man, somewhat similar in aspect, but larger of figure and stronger of face.

"To tell you the truth, mister," said the man, with the easy freedom of the West, "Billy Plover--and my cousin he is, twice removed--my name's Sandidge--is runnin' away."

"Running away?" exclaimed Harley, in surprise. "Where's he running to, and what's he running from?"

"Where he's runnin' to, I don't know--California, or Washington, or Oregon, I guess. But I know mighty well what he's runnin' away from; it's his wife."

"Ah, a family trouble?" said Harley, whose delicacy would have caused him to refrain from asking more. But the garrulous cousin rambled on.

"It's a trouble, and it ain't a trouble," he continued. "It's the weather and the crops, or maybe because Billy 'ain't had no weather nor no crops, either. You see, he's lived for the last ten years on a quarter-section out near Kalapoosa, with his wife, Susan, a good woman and a terrible hard worker, but the rain's been mighty light for three seasons, and Billy's wheat has failed every time. It's kinder got on his temper, and, as they 'ain't got any children to take care of, Billy he's been takin' to politics. Got an idea that he can speak, though he can't, worth shucks, and thinks he's got a mission to whack Wall Street, though I ain't sure but what Wall Street don't deserve it. Susan says he ain't got any business in politics, that he ought to leave that to better men, an' stay an' wrastle with the ground and the weather. So that made them take to spattin'."

"And the upshot?"

"Waal, the upshot was that Billy said he could stand it no longer. So last night he raked up half the spare cash, leavin' the rest and the farm and stock to Susan, an' he loped out. But first he said he had to hear Jimmy Grayson, who is mighty nigh a whole team of prophets to him, and, as Jimmy's goin' west, right on his way, he's come along. But to-night, at Jimmy's last stoppin'-place, he leaves us and takes a train straight to the coast. I'm sorry, because if Susan had time to see him and talk it over--you see, she's the man of the two--the whole thing would blow over, and they'd be back on the farm, workin' hard, and with good times ahead."

Harley was moved by this pathetic little tragedy of the plains, the result of loneliness and hard times preying upon the tempers of two people. "Poor devil!" he thought. "It's as his cousin says; if Susan could only be face to face with him for five minutes, he'd drop his foolish idea of running away and go home."

Then of that thought was born unto him a great idea, and he immediately hunted up the cousin again.

"Is Kalapoosa a station on the telegraph line?" he asked.

"Oh yes."

"Would a telegram to that point be delivered to the Plover farm?"

"Yes. Why, what's up?"