The Candidate: A Political Romance
everywhere, at every point of the compass wherever he looked, and when
he came out of the saloon and went down the deserted street he saw
Harley in reality, strolling along absently, his eyes upon the ground.
He thought first that the correspondent was on his way to join the crowd
around the speaker's stand, but he soon perceived that he was going in
another direction. It was "King" Plummer's first impulse--there was
still liquid fire in his veins--to overtake Harley and demand the only
kind of satisfaction that such a man as he should have. Then he wished
to see where Harley was going, because he had a premonition--false in
this case, the meeting was by accident--that he was on his way to
Sylvia; so he decided to follow as an animal stalks its game. Only the
most powerful emotion conjoined with other circumstances could have made
the "King" do such a thing, as his nature was essentially open, and he
loved open methods. Yet he trailed his enemy with the skill and cunning
of an Indian.
He saw Harley and Sylvia meet, and all his suspicions were confirmed.
Again he felt a fierce impulse, and it was to rush upon the guilty pair,
but he restrained it and still followed. His perceptions were trained to
other things, but he was in no danger of being seen by them; they were
too much absorbed in each other, and all the world passed by them
unnoticed. The "King," though a rough, blunt man, saw this, and it made
the fire in him burn the hotter.
He saw them stop at last, he saw Harley kiss Sylvia, and then he saw
the girl turn away. He waited until he saw Sylvia pass over the swell,
and then he took his opportunity. Whether he would have fired if Sylvia
had not come he could not say to himself afterwards in his cooler
moments. Remorse upon this point tortured him for some time.
When he turned away he saw nothing. He was agitated by the powerful
truth that Sylvia preferred death with Harley to life with him, and all
his views were inward. He still did not know what he would do, but there
was much of a moving nature to him in the scene that he left. He had
never before seen such a look on a woman's face as that on Sylvia's when
she threw herself upon Harley's breast and defied his bullet; it was
beautiful and wonderfully pathetic, and something like a sob came from
the burly "King." Harley, too, had borne himself like a man; there was
no fear in the face of the Eastern youth when he looked into the muzzle
of the pistol that threatened instant death; "King" Plummer remembered
more than once in the early days when he had been covered by the
levelled weapon of an enemy, and he knew how hard it was in such a case
to control one's nerves and keep steady. He could not help respecting a
courage fully the equal of his own.
He wandered on in a series of circles that did not take him far, and in
a half-hour he stopped at the crest of a swell higher than the rest. He
saw Sylvia and Harley far away--but he knew them well--walking side by
side. "Well, I suppose they have the right!" he said, moodily. The fire
within him was dying down, but he added; "I'll be damned if I look at
them making love."
The "King" had the habits bred by long years of necessity and
precaution, and unless the distracting circumstances were very powerful
he was always a keen observer of weather and locality. Now the fire was
low, but he was almost at the edge of the town before his blood became
normal and cool. Then he looked about. A half-mile away he saw a mass of
heads, sometimes rising and falling, and a faint echo of cheers came to
him. He knew that the candidate was still speaking, and he smiled rather
sourly. Then he was conscious that the sunshine was not so brilliant,
and there was a feeling of chill damp in the wind that came up from the
southwest.
The "King" glanced up at the sky; it had turned a steely gray, and ugly
brown clouds were coming up over the rim of the southwestern horizon.
"There's going to be an early snow," he said, and for the moment the
matter gave him no further concern. Then Sylvia and Harley suddenly shot
up and filled his whole horizon. He had seen them far from where he
stood, and they were going directly away from the town, not towards it!
And one was a girl and the other a tenderfoot!
Now Harley disappeared from the "King's" horizon as suddenly as he had
come into it, and the solitary figure of Sylvia filled all its space.
She was not a woman now, but the desolate little girl whom he had found
alone in the mountains, vainly trying to bury her massacred dead, and
whom he had carried away on his saddle-bow. All the long years of
protection and tenderness that he had given her came back to him; there
was only the image of the slim little girl with flying curls who ran to
meet him and who called him "Daddy!"
That little girl was lost out there on the plain, and as sure as the sun
had gone from the heavens a snow-storm was coming fast on the wings of
the southwestern wind. He knew, and his heart was filled with grief and
despair; no rage was left there; that fire had burned out completely,
and it seemed to the "King" that it never could be lighted again. It was
wonderful now to him that the flame could ever have been so fierce. And
the boy Harley was lost, too. Mr. Plummer again remembered, and with a
certain admiration, how brave Harley had been, and he remembered, too,
that when he first saw him his impulse was to like him greatly.
He ran back towards the swell where he had last beheld them, hoping to
find them or at least to follow upon their traces before the snow fell
and hid the trail. He was an old frontiersman, and with a favorable soil
he might do it. But long before he reached the swell the snow flew, and
the brown clouds and the whirling flakes together blotted out all the
plain, save the little circle in which he stood.
He raised his powerful voice and called in tones that carried far,
"Sylvia! Sylvia!" But no sound came back save the lonely cry of the wind
and the soft, whirring rush of the snow, like the soft beat of wings.
The "King" was a brave and sanguine man, physically and mentally
disposed to hope, but his heart dropped like lead in water. He saw the
slim little girl, with flying brown hair, dead and cold in the snow.
Then his courage came back, and with it all his mental coolness. He did
not seek to rush after them, floundering here and there in the
semi-darkness and calling vainly, but hurried back to the town.
The people had just returned from the candidate's speech, and were
crowding into the lobby of the hotel to shake Mr. Grayson's hand and to
tell him that he would win by a "million majority." The candidate was
enduring this ordeal with his usual good-nature and grace, although the
crowded room was hot and close, and the odor of steaming boots arose.
Into this packed mass of human beings "King" Plummer burst like a bomb.
"Help! All of you!" he cried, and his voice cracked like a rifle. "They
are lost out on the plain in the storm, and they were wandering away
from the town! Miss Morgan! Sylvia! My child! And the young man,
Harley!"
There was no mistaking the "King's" meaning. Here was a mountain man,
one who knew of what he was talking, one who would raise no false alarm.
Both grief and command were in his voice, and the Dakotans responded
upon the instant; they knew Sylvia, too--her fresh, young beauty, coming
into so small a town, was noticed at once. To the last man they went out
into the storm to the rescue; and there were many women who were
willing, too.
The candidate seized Mr. Plummer's arm in a fierce grasp.
"Do you mean to say that Sylvia and Harley are lost in that?" he cried,
and he pointed into the mass of driving snow.
"Ay, they are there," said the "King," "but we will find them."
"We will find them," echoed Jimmy Grayson, and, though they strove to
make him stay at the hotel, he drew his overcoat about his ears and was
by his side as "King" Plummer led the way. Hobart, Blaisdell, even old
Tremaine, and Churchill as well, were there, too.
They knew that Sylvia and Harley were somewhere north of the town, and,
dividing into groups, five or six to a group, they spread out to a
great distance. They carried whiskey for warmth, and lanterns with
which to signal to each other, and for guidance in the night that might
come before they returned. In the twilight of the storm these lanterns
twinkled dimly.
The "King" himself carried a lantern, and Jimmy Grayson, by his side,
could read his face. Mr. Plummer had not told him a word, but he could
guess the story. He had come upon them, there was a violent scene of
some kind, and now the "King," with death threatening "his little girl,"
was stricken with remorse. All the candidate's anger against Mr. Plummer
was gone, melted away suddenly--and he saw that the "King's" wrath
against himself was gone the same way. Now he felt only pity for the
stricken man.
The great line of men moved across the plain towards the north, calling
to each other now and then and waving the dim lanterns. Jimmy Grayson
listened for the welcome cry that the lost had been found, but it did
not come. The "King" did not speak save to give orders--he had naturally
assumed command of the relief party, and his position was not disputed.
They advanced far northward, and they noticed with increased alarm the
thickening of the storm. Whirlwinds of snow beat in their faces. Jimmy
Grayson once heard the big, burly man by his side say, in a kind of
sobbing whisper, "Oh, my little girl!" and he felt a catch in his own
throat.
Then he repeated the "King's" own words, "We will find them."
"And alive!" said the "King," in fierce defiance.
He did not speak again for a long time. He seemed to become unconscious
of the presence by his side of Jimmy Grayson, the man whom in his hot
wrath he had threatened to betray. At last he turned his head and said,
as if it were an impulse:
"Mr. Grayson, they said I was going to knife you, and I meant to do it!
They tempted me, and I was willing to be tempted by them; but, by God! I
gave them no promise and I won't. I was your friend, and I'm your friend
again!"
"A better I never hope to have," said Jimmy Grayson, and in the storm
the hands of the two men met in a grasp as true as it was strong.
"We will not speak of this again," said Mr. Grayson and they never did.
A resident of Grafton, Mr. Harrison, came up to them, fighting his way
through the snow.
"Mr. Plummer," he said, "there are some rocky hills three or four miles
north of here, with hollows and sort of half-way caves here and there in
their sides. It's barely possible that Mr. Harley and Miss Morgan have
got to one of those places. I think we ought to go there at once,
because, because--"
The man's voice failed.
"Speak out," said the "King," "I can stand it."
"Well, it's just this, though I hate to say it. It's a sure thing that
they've gone a long distance, an' if they've hit on one of the hollows
we're likely to find 'em alive if we get there pretty soon, but if they
ain't in a hollow they'll be--they'll be--"
"They'll be dead when we do find them. Take us to the hills, Mr.
Harrison."
The man, lantern in hand, strode on, and with him were Mr. Grayson and
Mr. Plummer. Hobart was at the candidate's elbow. Twilight was at hand
and the darkness was increasing, although the snow was thinning. Hobart,
peering out on the plain, saw only the swells of snow rising and
falling like a white sea, and overhead the sky of sullen clouds. He
marked the agony on the faces of the candidate and the "King," and his
own heart was heavy. There was no thrill over a mystery now; the lost
were too dear to him.
"It's night," said Mr. Plummer. In his heart was the fear that the two,