Part 43

As they left the hall, Churchill overtook Harley and tapped him on the shoulder. Harley turned and saw an expression of supreme disgust on the face of the Monitor's correspondent, but Harley himself only felt amusement. He knew that Churchill meant attack.

"I never saw anything more theatrical and ill-timed," said Churchill. "Of course, it was all prearranged in some manner. But the idea of a Presidential nominee taking such a risk!"

"He has saved an innocent man's life, and I call that no small achievement."

"Because the trick was successful; but it was a trick, all the same, and it was beneath the dignity of a Presidential nominee."

"There was but little risk of any kind," said Harley, shortly, "and even had it been larger, it would have been right to take it, when the stake was a man's life. Churchill, you are hunting for faults, you know you are, or you would not be so quick to see them."

Churchill made no audible reply, but Harley could see that he was unconvinced, and, in fact, he sent his newspaper a lurid despatch about it, taking events out of their proper proportion, and hence giving to them a wholly unjustifiable conclusion. But Sylvia Morgan was devotedly loyal to her uncle. There were few deeds of his of which she approved more warmly than this of saving Boyd's life, and Hobart, the master spirit in it, she thanked in a way that made him turn red with pleasure. But the discussion of the whole affair was brief, because fast upon its heels trod another event which stirred them yet more deeply.

When the special train was at Blue Earth, in Montana, among the high mountains, there came to Jimmy Grayson an appeal, compounded of pathos and despair, that he could not resist. It was from the citizens of Crow's Wing, forty miles deeper into the yet higher and steeper mountains, and they recounted, in mournful words, how no candidate ever came to see them; all passed them by as either too few or too difficult, and they had never yet listened to the spell of oratory; of course, they did not expect the nominee of a great party for the Presidency of the United States to make the hard trip and speak to them, when even the little fellows ignored their existence; nevertheless, they wished to inform him in writing that they were alive, and on the map, at least, they made as big a dot as either Helena or Butte.

The candidate smiled when he read the letter. The tone of it moved him. Moreover, he was not deficient in policy--no man who rises is--and while Crow's Wing had but few votes, Montana was close, and a single state might decide the Union.

"Those people at Crow's Wing do not expect me, but I shall go to them," he said to his train.

"Why, it's a full day's journey and more, over the roughest and rockiest road in America," said Mr. Curtis, the state senator from Wyoming, who was still with them.

"I shall go," said Jimmy Grayson, decisively. "There is a break here in our schedule, and this trip will fit in very nicely."

The others were against it, but they said nothing more in opposition, knowing that it would be of no avail. Obliging, generous, and soft-hearted, the candidate, nevertheless, had a temper of steel when his mind was made up, and the others had learned not to oppose it. But all shunned the journey with him to Crow's Wing except Harley, Mr. Plummer, Mr. Herbert Heathcote--because there is no zeal like that of the converted--and one other.

That "other" was Sylvia, and she insisted upon going, refusing to listen to all the good arguments that were brought against it. "I know that I am only a woman--a girl," she said, "but I know, too, that I've lived all my life in the mountains, and I understand them. Why, I've been on harder journeys than this with daddy before I was twelve years old. Haven't I, daddy?" As she had predicted, she forgot his request not to call him "daddy."

Thus appealed to, Mr. Plummer was fain to confess the truth, though with reluctance. However, he said, rather weakly:

"But you don't know what kind of weather we'll have, Sylvia."

Then she turned upon him in a manner that terrified him.

"Now, daddy, if I couldn't get up a better argument than that I'd quit," she said. "Weather! weather! weather! to an Idaho girl! Suppose it should rain, I'm made of neither sugar nor salt, and I won't melt. I've been rained on a thousand times. Aunt Anna says I may go if Uncle James is willing, and he's willing--he has to be; besides, he's my chaperon. If you don't say 'yes,' Uncle James, I shall take the train and go straight home."

They were forced to consent, and Harley was glad that she insisted, because he liked to know that she was near, and he thought that she looked wonderfully well on horseback.

The going of Harley with the candidate was taken as a matter of course by everybody. Silent, tactful, and strong, he had grown almost imperceptibly into a confidential relationship with the nominee, and Mr. Grayson did not realize how much he relied upon the quiet man who could not make a speech but who was so ready of resource. As for Mr. Heathcote, being an Easterner, he wished to see the West in all its aspects.

They started at daybreak, guided by a taciturn mountaineer, Jim Jones, called simply Jim for the sake of brevity, and, the hour being so early, few were present to see them ride up the hanging slope and into the mighty wilderness.

But it was a glorious dawn. The young sun was gilding the sea of crags and crests with burnished gold and the air had the sparkle of youth. Mr. Heathcote threw back his slightly narrow chest, and, drawing three deep breaths of just the same length, he said, "I would not miss this trip for a thousand dollars!"

"And I wouldn't for two thousand!" exclaimed Sylvia, joyously.

Harley said nothing, but he, too, looked out upon the morning world with a kindling eye. Far below them was a narrow valley, a faint green line down the centre showing where the little river ran, with the irrigated farms on either side, like beads on a string. Above them towered the peaks, white with everlasting snow.

"A fine day for our ride," said the candidate to Jim.

"Looks like it now, though I never gamble on mountain weather," replied the taciturn man.

But the promise held good for a long time, the sun still shining and the winds coming fresh and brisk along the crests and ridges. The trail wound about the slopes and steadily ascended. Vegetation ceased, and before them stretched the bare rocks. Harley knew very well now that only the sunshine saved them from grimness and desolation. The loneliness became oppressive. Even Sylvia was silent. It was the wilderness in reality as well as seeming; nowhere did they see a miner's hut or a hunter's cabin, only nature in her most savage form.

The little group of horsemen forgot to talk. The candidate's head was bowed and his brow bent. Clearly he was immersed in thought. Mr. Heathcote, unused to such arduous journeys, leaned forward in his saddle in a state of semi-exhaustion. But Sylvia, although a girl, was accustomed to the mountains, and she showed few signs of fatigue. Harley said at last to the guide, "A wild country, one of the wildest, I think, that I ever saw."

"Yes, a wild country, and a bad 'un, too," responded Jim. "See off there to the left?"