The Candidate: A Political Romance
him advice that was right and true.
When Harley told Mr. Heathcote of his purpose, the committeeman's face
became grave, but he said, "It is the hard thing for you to do, although
it is the best thing." An hour later, Harley sent to his editor in New
York a despatch, asking to be recalled; he said there had arisen
personal reasons which would make him valueless for the rest of the
campaign, and he felt that the _Gazette_ would be the gainer if he were
transferred to another field of activity.
Harley felt a deep pang, and he did not attempt to disguise it from
himself, when he sent this telegram, but after it was gone his
conscience came to his relief, although he still avoided the presence of
Sylvia with great care. But the pang was repeated many times, as he sat
silent among his companions and calculated how he could leave them that
night and get a train for New York in the morning.
He was still sitting among them about the twilight hour when the
conductor handed him a telegraphic despatch, and Harley knew that it was
from his editor, who had a high appreciation of his merits, both
personal and professional. The message was brief and pointed. It said:
"Can't understand your request for a transfer. Your despatches from the
campaign best work you have ever done; not only have all news, but write
from the inside; you present the candidate as he is. Have telegraphed
Mr. Grayson asking if there is any quarrel, and in reply he makes
special request that you represent _Gazette_ with him to the end. Stay
till you are sent for, and don't bother me again."
Harley read it over a second time. Despite himself he smiled, and he
smiled because he felt a throb of pleasure. "Good old chief," he said,
and he understood now that a refusal of his request was a hope that he
had dared not utter to himself. But he knew that he should have taken
the great risk.
He showed the despatch to Mr. Heathcote, and the committeeman was
sincerely glad.
"Your editor has done his duty," he said.
Mr. Grayson did not allude to the subject, and Harley respected his
silence, although devoutly grateful for the reply that he had made.
Other telegrams caused by the threatened revolt in the mountains were
also passing; some of them stopped at the house of Mr. Plummer, in
Boise, and upon the trail of one of these telegrams, a forcible one,
came a thin-faced and quiet but alert man, Mr. Henry Crayon, who in his
way was a power in both the financial and political worlds. Mr. Crayon
was perhaps the most trusted of the lieutenants of the Honorable Clinton
Goodnight, and the two had held a long conference before his departure
for the West, agreeing at the end of it that "it was time to make a
move, and after that move to spring a live issue."
Mr. Crayon was fairly well informed of the causes that agitated the soul
of "King" Plummer, and as he shot westward on a Limited Continental
Express he considered the best way of approach, inclining as always to
delicate but incisive methods. Long before he reached Boise his mind was
well made up, and he felt content because he anticipated no difficulty
in handling the crude mountaineer, who was unused to the ways of
diplomacy.
He found the "King" in Boise, still hot and sulky. Mr. Plummer had not
heard anything in person from the Graysons, nor had he sent any message
to them, and the mountains were full of talk about his bolt, which was
now spoken of as an accepted fact.
Mr. Crayon's first meeting with Mr. Plummer came about in quite an
accidental and easy way--Mr. Crayon saw to that--and the Easterner was
deferential, as became one who had so little experience of the West,
who, in case he was presumptuous, was likely to be reminded that Idaho
was nearly twenty times as large as Connecticut and twice as large as
the state of New York itself. After making himself pleasant by humility
and requests for advice, Mr. Crayon glided warily into the subject of
politics. He disclosed to Mr. Plummer how much a powerful faction in the
party was displeased with Mr. Grayson, and the equally important fact
that this faction felt the necessity of speedy action of some kind.
They were at that moment in a secluded corner of the reading-room of the
chief hotel in Boise, and Mr. Crayon had ordered a pleasant and powerful
Western concoction which he and Mr. Plummer sipped as they talked. The
"King's" face was red, partly with the sun and partly with the anger
that still burned him. Mr. Crayon's words fell soothingly upon his
ear--Mr. Crayon had a quiet, mellow voice--and his sense of injury at
the hands of Jimmy Grayson deepened. What right had Jimmy Grayson or
Jimmy Grayson's wife, which was the same thing, to interfere in his
private affairs? And it was only a step from one's private life to one's
public life. Wrong in one, wrong in the other. Mr. Crayon, watching him
keenly though covertly, was pleased with the varying expressions that
passed over the unbearded portions of the "King's" face. He read there
anger, jealousy, and revenge, and he said to himself that he would bend
this man, big and strong as he was, to his will.
Mr. Crayon now grew bolder. He said that the minority within the party,
which, for the present, he represented, was resolved to come to an issue
with Mr. Grayson; the destinies of a great party, and possibly the
country, could not be put in the hands of a man who had neither the
proper dignity nor the proper sense of responsibility. Thus far he went,
and then the wily Mr. Crayon stopped to notice the effect.
It seemed to him to be favorable, and Mr. Crayon was an acute man. The
"King" drank a little of his liquor and nodded his head. Yes, he had
been fooled in Jimmy Grayson, he had thought that he was as true as
steel, but there was a flaw in the steel; Jimmy Grayson had done him a
great injury, and he was not a man who turned one cheek when the other
was smitten; he smote back with all his might, and his own hand was
pretty heavy.
Mr. Crayon smiled--all things were certainly going well; he had caught
Mr. Plummer at the right moment, and there was no doubt of the
impression that he was making. Then he went a little further; he
suggested that a certain important issue not hitherto discussed in the
campaign was going to be brought up, even now they were proposing to
present it in the West, and Mr. Grayson would have to declare himself
either for or against it--there was no middle ground. Mr. Crayon again
stopped and observed the "King" with the same covert but careful
glance. The face of Mr. Plummer obviously bore the stamp of approval;
moreover, he nodded, and, thus encouraged, Mr. Crayon went further and
further, telling why the issue was so great, and why it must be
presented to the public without delay.
Mr. Plummer asked him to name the issue, and when Mr. Crayon did so,
without reserve, the "King's" face once more bore the stamp of approval,
and he nodded his head again.
"If Mr. Grayson accepts the law as we lay it down," said Mr. Crayon,
with satisfaction, "he places himself in our hands and we control him.
Our policies prevail, and, if he becomes President of the United States,
we remain the power that rules him, and that, therefore, rules the
country. If he resists us, well, that is the end of him!"
Mr. Crayon had lighted a cigar, and as he said "that is the end of him"
he flicked off the ash with a quick gesture that had in it the touch of
finality.
Mr. Plummer said nothing, and Mr. Crayon was content; he could do enough
talking for two.
"Mr. Goodnight and other of my associates are coming West very soon," he
continued. "The velvet glove will be taken off, and it is high time."
Then they went forth into the streets of Boise and they were seen
walking together by many people, to which Mr. Crayon was not averse, and
in an hour three or four local correspondents were sending eastward
vivid despatches stating that Mr. Crayon, the representative of the
conservative and dissatisfied minority in the party, was in Boise in
close conference with "King" Plummer, the political ruler of the
mountains. And the burden of all these despatches was fast-coming evil
for Jimmy Grayson.
Nor was the candidate long in hearing of it. The very next day a Boise
newspaper containing a full first-page account of it reached them, and
was read aloud to the party by Mr. Heathcote. Mr. Grayson made no
comment as it was being read, but Harley once saw his face darken and
his lips close tightly together; this was the only sign that he gave,
and it quickly passed.
But the others were not so chary of words. The train was full of
indignant comment, and the ears of "King" Plummer in the distance must
have burned.
"I could not have believed it of him," said Mr. Heathcote. "It is untrue
to the man's whole nature, even if he is swayed suddenly by some
powerful emotion."
Hobart glanced at Sylvia, who had withdrawn to the far end of the car,
where she was apparently gazing at the mountains that fled by, although
she said not one word and her face was red. Nor did Harley join in the
talk, but, taking advantage of the slight bustle caused by Mr. Grayson's
retirement to the drawing-room, he took refuge in a day car to which
their own coach was attached for the time. That evening, while the
others were at dinner, he saw Sylvia alone.
"I ought to tell you," she said, "that I have asked to leave the train,
but my aunt has refused to consent to it. She says she needs me, and as
I cannot go now to my old home in Boise, it is better for me to stay
with her. I have heard that you asked to be recalled to the East, and I
honor you for it."
"Are you sorry that my request was refused?" asked Harley.
She did not falter, although the red in her cheeks flushed deeper.
"No, I am not sorry; I am glad," she replied. "Why should I tell an
untruth about what is so great a matter to both of us? But it cannot
change anything."
Harley felt that this was, indeed, a maid well worth winning, and his
hope yet to find a way, which had been weakened somewhat lately, grew
high again. That night wild resolves ran through his mind. He would
sacrifice his pride, hitherto an unthinkable thing--he would see "King"
Plummer and tell him that Sylvia and he loved each other, that neither
of them could possibly be happy unless they were wedded, then he would
appeal to the older man's generosity; he would tell him how Sylvia
loyally meant to keep her word and pay her debt of gratitude with
herself, then he would ask him to release her from the promise. But he
gave up the idea as one that required too much; he could never humiliate
himself so far, and even then it would be a humiliation without result.
If Harley had undertaken to carry out such a wild idea, he would have
found it difficult, because no one in the party then knew where "King"
Plummer was; they were hearing of him all over the West, and the Denver,
Salt Lake, and smaller newspapers were filled with accounts of his
doings, all colored highly. His bolt, they said, was now an accomplished
fact; he showed the deepest hostility to the candidate, and he was also
in constant correspondence with a powerful and dissatisfied wing in the
East.
Mr. Grayson never said a word, he never spoke of Mr. Plummer in any of
his speeches, and Harley believed there was only sadness in his mind,
not anger, whenever he thought of the "King."
But there could be no doubt of the effect of all these events upon the
campaign; to the public Jimmy Grayson seemed as one lost in the
wilderness, and only in the mountains, where the people were far from
the great centres of information, did they yet cherish a hope of his
election. Churchill wrote to the _Monitor_ that Jimmy Grayson himself
had abandoned hope.
Ominous rumblings were coming from the East, too. Goodnight, Crayon, and