Part 57

The next day, which was occupied with the run down to Pueblo and occasional stops for speeches at way-stations, was uneventful save for the growing obsession of Charlie Moore. He was overflowing with pride and importance. That night, in the presence of five thousand people, he was going to reply to the great Jimmy Grayson, and show to them and to him his errors. Mr. Grayson was sound in most things, but there were several in which he should be set right, and he, Charlie Moore, was the man to do it for him.

The fledgling proudly produced several printed programmes with his name next to that of the candidate, and talked to the correspondents of the main points that he would make, until they fled into the next car. But he followed them there and asked them if they would not like to take in advance a synopsis of his speech, in order that they might be sure to telegraph it to their offices in time. All evaded the issue except Harley, who gravely jotted down the synopsis, and, with equal gravity, returned his thanks for Mr. Moore's consideration.

"I knew you wouldn't want to miss it," said the youth, "I come on late, you know, and, besides, I remembered that the difference in time between here and New York is against us."

Mr. Moore, the father, was on the train throughout the day, but he did not speak to his son. He spent his time in the car in which Jimmy Grayson sat, always silent, but always looking, with appeal and pathos, at the great leader. His eyes said plainly: "Mr. Grayson, you will not fail me, will you? You will save my son? You will beat him, and tread on him until he hasn't left a single thought of being a famous orator and public leader? Then he will return to the work for which God made him."

Harley would look at the old man awhile, and then return to the next car, where the youth was chattering away to those who could not escape him.

The speech in Pueblo was to be of the utmost importance, not alone to those whose own ears would hear it, but to the whole Union, because the candidate would make a plain declaration upon a number of vexed questions that had been raised within the last week or two. This had been announced in all the press on the authority of Jimmy Grayson himself, and the speech in full, not a word missing, would have to be telegraphed to all the great newspapers both East and West.

In such important campaigns as that of a Presidential nominee, the two great telegraph companies always send operators with the correspondents, in order that they may despatch long messages from small way-stations, where the local men are not used to such heavy work. Now Harley and his associates had with them two veterans, Barr and Wymond, from Chicago, who never failed them. They were relieved, too, on reaching Pueblo, to find that the committee in charge had been most considerate. Some forethoughtful man, whom the correspondents blessed, had remembered the three hours' difference in time between Pueblo and New York, and against New York, and he had run two wires directly into the hall and into a private box on the left, where Barr and Wymond could work the instruments, so far from the stage that the clicking would not disturb Jimmy Grayson or anybody else, but would save much time for the correspondents.

The audience gathered early, and it was a splendid Western crowd, big-boned and tanned by the Western winds.

"They have cranks out here, but it's a land of strong men, don't you forget that," said Harley to Churchill, and Churchill did not attempt a sarcastic reply.

They were both sitting at the edge of the stage, and in front of them, nearer the footlights, was young Moore, proud and eager, his fingers moving nervously. His father, too, had found a seat on the stage, but he was in the background, next to the scenery and behind the others; he was not visible from the floor of the house. There he sat, staring gloomily at his son, and now and then, with a sort of despairing hope, glancing at Jimmy Grayson.

There were some short preliminary speeches and introductions, and then came the turn of the candidate. The usual flutter of expectation ran over the audience, followed by the usual deep hush, but just at that moment there was an interruption. A boy in the uniform of a telegraph company hurried upon the stage.

"You must come at once, sir," he said to Harley. "Mr. Wymond hasn't turned up. We don't know what's become of him. And Mr. Barr has took sick, sudden and bad. The Pueblo manager says he'll get somebody here as quick as he can, but he can't do it under half an hour, anyway!"

The other correspondents stared at each other in dismay, and then at the hired stenographer who was to take down the speech in full. But Harley, always thoughtful and resourceful, responded to the emergency. He had noticed Moore raise his head with an expression of lively interest at the news of the disaster, and he stepped forward at once and put his hand on the fledgling's shoulder.

"Mr. Moore," he exclaimed, in stirring appeal, "this is a crisis for us, and you must save us. You have eaten with us, and you have lived with us, and you cannot desert us now. We have all heard that you are a great operator, the greatest in the West. You must send Mr. Grayson's speech. What a triumph it will be for you--to send his speech and then get upon this stage and demolish it afterwards!"

The feeling in Harley's voice was real, and the boy was thrilled by it and the situation. Every natural impulse in him responded. It was the chivalrous thing for him to do, and an easy one. He could send a speech as fast as the fastest man living could deliver it. He rose without a word, his heart beating with thoughts of the coming battle, in which he felt proudly that he should be a victor, and made his way to the telegraphers' box.

Moore had lived in Pueblo, and nearly everybody in the audience knew him. When they saw him take his seat at one of the instruments, their quick Western minds divined what he was going to do, and the roar of applause that they had just given to the candidate, who was now on his feet, was succeeded by another; but the second was for Charlie Moore, the telegraph-operator.

The fledgling had no time to think. He had scarcely settled himself in his chair when the deep, full voice of Jimmy Grayson filled the great hall, and he was launched upon a speech for which the whole Union was waiting. The short-hand man was already deep in his work, and the copy began to come. But the boy felt no alarm; he was not even flustered; the feel of the key was good, and the atmosphere of that box which enclosed the telegraph apparatus was sweet in his nostrils. He called up Denver, from which the speech would be repeated to the greater cities, and with a sigh of deep satisfaction settled to his task.

They tell yet in Western telegraph circles of Charlie Moore's great exploit. The candidate was in grand form that night, and his speech came rushing forth in a torrent. The missing Wymond was still missing, and the luckless Barr was still ill, but the fledgling sat alone in the box, his face bent over the key, oblivious of the world around him, and sent it all. Through him ran the fire of battle and great endeavor. He heard the call and replied. He never missed a word. He sent them hot across the prairie, over the slopes and ridges, and across the brown plains into Denver. And there in the general office the manager muttered more than once: "That fellow is doing great work! How he saves time!"

The audience liked Jimmy Grayson's speech, and again and again the applause swelled and echoed. Then they noticed how the boy in the telegraphers' box--a boy of their own--was working. Mysterious voices, too, began to spread among them the news how Charlie Moore had saved the day--or, rather, the night--and now and then in Jimmy Grayson's pauses cries of "Good boy, Charlie!" arose.

Harley, while doing his writing, nevertheless kept a keen eye upon all the actors in the drama. He saw the light of hope appear more strongly upon old man Moore's face, and then turn into a glow as he beheld his son doing so well.

The candidate spoke on and on. He had begun at nine o'clock, but that was a great and important speech, and no one left the hall. Eleven o'clock, and then midnight, and Jimmy Grayson was still speaking. But it was not his night alone; it belonged to two men, and the other partner was Charlie Moore, who fulfilled his task equally well, and whom the audience still observed.

But the boy was thinking only of his duty that he was doing so well. The victory was his, as he knew that it would be. He kept even with the speech. Hardly had the last word of the sentence left Jimmy Grayson's lips before the first of it was on the way to Denver, and in newspaper offices two thousand miles away they were putting every paragraph in type before it was a half-hour old.

The boy, by-and-by, as the words passed before him on the written page, began to notice what a great speech it was. How the sentences cut to the heart of things! How luminous and striking was the phraseology! And around him he heard, as if in a dream, the liquid notes of that wonderful, golden voice. Suddenly, like a stroke of lightning, he realized how empty were his own thoughts, how bare and hard his speech, and how thin and flat his voice! His heart sank with a plunge, and then rose again as his finger touched the familiar key and the answering touch thrilled back through his body. He glanced at the audience, and saw many faces looking up at him, and on them was a peculiar look. Again the thrill ran through him, and, bending his head lower, he sent the words faster than ever on their eastern journey.

At last Jimmy Grayson stopped, and then the audience cheered its applause for the speech. When the echoes died, some one--it was Judge Basset--sprang up on a chair and exclaimed:

"Gentlemen, we have cheered Mr. Grayson, and he deserves it; but there is some one else whom we ought to cheer, too. You have seen Charlie Moore, a Pueblo boy, one of our own, there in the box sending the speech to the world that was waiting for it. Perhaps you do not know that if he had not helped us to-night the world would have had to wait too long."

They dragged young Moore, amid the cheers, upon the stage, and then, when the hush came, the candidate said:

"You seem to know him already; but as all the speaking of the evening is now over, I wish to introduce to you again Mr. Charlie Moore, the greatest telegraph-operator in the West, the genius of the key, a man destined to rise to the highest place in his profession."

When the last echo of the last cheer died, there died with it the last ambition of Charlie Moore to be a spellbinder, and straight before him, broad, smooth, and alluring, lay the road for which his feet were fitted.