The Ramrodders. Holman Day
as anger possessed her.
"Have I ever said I wanted to marry your grandson? Has he ever said he wanted to marry me? Is it because you have such a wicked old mind that you think we cannot always be the true friends we have been? I do not want a husband. But I have a friend, and you shall not take him away from me!"
"You have heard, sir. Do you realize how you have insulted both of us?
You shall apologize, Grandfather Thornton!"
For reply the old man walked up to him, snapped the fingers of both hands under his nose, and walked away. "Give me ten words more of that talk and I'll take you across my knee," he called over his shoulder. "There are some men that never grow old enough to get beyond the spanking age."
Presson, interested spectator, looked for the natural outburst of youth at that point. But he stared at the young man, and decided that he truly had inherited the Thornton grit and self-restraint which the Duke seemed now to have lost all at once after all the years.
Harlan gazed after his grandfather, lips tightening. He was an embodiment of wholesome young manhood, as he stood there, struggling with the passion that prompted him to unfilial reproaches. Then he turned to the girl. He had a wistful smile for her.
"I'm sorry, little Clare," he said, softly. She slipped her hands under the belt of his corduroy jacket and gazed up at him tearfully.
"He had no right to say that I—that I—oh, he doesn't understand friendship!" she cried.
"No, and we'll not try to explain—not now! But I have some serious matters to talk over with my grandfather. Ride home, dear; I'll see you before I go back to the woods again."
"And you are going back to the woods? You are not going to let them send you away where you'll forget your best friends?"
"I never shall forget my friends. And I can't believe that you heard right, little girl. My grandfather will not put me in politics. Don't worry. I'll straighten it all out before I leave."
He lifted her to her horse and sent her away with a pat. She went unprotesting, with a trustful smile. The hounds raced wildly after her.
"Woof!" remarked the Hon. Luke Presson to himself, "there's a kitten that's been fed on plenty of raw meat!" And as he always compared all women with his daughter, reigning beauty of the State capital, he added: "I'd like to have Madeleine get a glimpse of that. She'd be glad that it's the style to bring girls up on a cream diet."
He hurried away behind Harlan, who had given him rather curt greeting, and had followed the Duke around to the front of the house. The old man was tramping the porch from end to end.
The boarding creaked under him as he strode, his gait a lurch that moved one side of his body at a time. The smoke from his cigar streamed past his ears.
It was silent at the front of the big house, and in that silence the three of them could hear the occasional shouts that greeted demagogic oratory down in the village. The comment of the lord of Canibas was the anathema that he growled to himself.
His grandson faced him twice on his turns along the porch, protest in his demeanor. But the old man brushed past.
"Grandfather, I want a word with you," Harlan ventured at last.
"You talk girl to me just now, young fellow, and you won't find it safe!"
He marched on, and the grandson resolutely waited his return.
"I'm going to talk business, sir. I want this thing understood. Is it true what I hear? Do you propose to put my name before that caucus? I want to say—"
But the old man strode away from him again.
"He says he's going to do it, and it's fool business," confided Presson.
"You've got to stop him. There's no reason in it."
"I've got my reasons. If you don't know enough to see 'em, it isn't my fault," snapped the Duke, passing them and overhearing.
"Then I've got this to say." The young man stopped his grandfather—as big, as determined, as passionate—Thornton against Thornton. "I'll not go to the legislature."
The old man shouted his reply.
"I don't know as you will, you tote-road mule, you! But, by the suffering Herod, they'll have to show me first!"
He elbowed his grandson aside and kept on pacing the porch.
CHAPTER IV
THE DUKE AT BAY
After that outburst Presson went away by himself to sulk. Young Thornton made no further protest. He stared at his grandfather, trying to comprehend what it meant—this bitterness, this savage resentment, this arbitrary authority that took no heed of his own wishes. He had always known a calm, kindly, sometimes caustic, but never impatient Thelismer Thornton. This old man, surly, domineering, and unreasonable, was new to him. And after a little while, worried and saddened, he went away. His presence seemed to stir even more rancor as the moments passed.
Presson understood better, but could not forgive the bullheadedness that seemed to be wrecking their political plans. His own political training had taught him the benefits of compromise. He was angry at this old man who proposed to go down fighting among the fallen props of a lifetime of power. And even though Presson now understood better some of the motives that prompted the Duke to force young Harlan out into the world, his political sensibilities were more acute than his sympathy.
Therefore the beleaguered lord of Canibas was left to fight it out alone.
He stood at the end of the porch and listened to the menacing sounds of the village.
He glared down the long street and grunted, "Grinding their knives, eh?"
Evidently the centrifugal motion of the political machine down there was violent enough to throw off one lively spark. A man came up the road at a brisk gait, stamped across the yard, and went direct to the Duke, who waited for him at the far end of the porch. He did not glance at Presson or at Harlan Thornton.
"Did you ever see anything like it, did you ever hear anything like it, Honor'ble?" the new arrival demanded with heat. "They're goin' to make a caucus out of it—a caucus!"
The man had a lower jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip between snaggy teeth. He spat the tip far.
"Yes, sir, by jehoshaphat, a caucus!"
Chairman Presson's ear had caught the sound of politics. He felt that he was entitled, ex officio, to be present at any conference. He hurried to the end of the porch.
"We ain't had a caucus in this district for more'n forty years," stated the new arrival, accepting the chairman as a friend of the cause. "Except as the chairman catches the seckertery somewhere and then hollers for some one to come in from the street and renominate the Honor'ble Thornton. But, dammit, this is going to be a caucus." The word seemed suddenly to have acquired novel meaning for him. "They must have been pussy-footin' for a month. You could have knocked me down with your cigar-butt, Squire, when I got in here to-day and found how she stood. If it hadn't been for War Eagle Ivus and his buck sheep breakin' out, they'd have ambuscaded ye, surer'n palm-leaf fans can't cool the kitchen o' hell. But even as it is—hoot and holler now, and tag-gool-I-see-ye, they say they've got you licked, and licked in the open—that's what they say!" The man's tone was that of one announcing the blotting-out of the stars.
"Walt Davis bragged about it," said the old man, outwardly calm, but eyes ablaze. "It must be a pretty sure thing when he's got the