After the cheering and hand-shaking, Steuchfield and his fellow-committeemen went to the train with the visiting speaker, and no one in the throng of congratulators was more enthusiastic than the opposition chairman.

“That was a cracking good speech—­a great speech, Mr. Blount!” he said, as the branch train rattled in from the north.  “If you can go all over the State making as good talks as the one we’ve just heard, you’ll tie the whole shooting-match up in a hard knot for us fellows.  But McVickar won’t let you do it—­not by a long shot!”

The potential tier of hard knots laughed genially.  “I don’t blame you for wanting to be shown, Mr. Steuchfield.  But I can assure you that the new policy has come to stay.  I have the management behind me in this thing, and any day you’ll come down to the capital I’ll put my time against yours and try to show you that we are out for open publicity and a square deal for every man—­including the railroad man.”

“All right,” was the cordial reply.  “I’ll be down along some of these days, and if you can convince me that McVickar isn’t going into politics any further than you’ve gone here to-night, I’ll promise you to come back to Carnadine and tell the boys the jig’s up.”

A few minutes later the branch train pulled out, and the chairman and his fellow-committeemen gave the departing joint-debater three cheers and another.  After the red tail-lights of the train had disappeared around the first curve, Steuchfield turned to the others with a broad grin.

“Well, boys,” he said, “there goes a mighty nice young fellow, and I guess we did it up all right for him and accordin’ to orders.  I don’t know any more’n a sheep what sort of a game Dave Sage-brush is playin’ this time, but whatever he says goes as she lays, and I figure it that we gave the young chip o’ the old block a right jubilant little whirl.  Anyhow, he seemed to think so.”

Blount did not reach his office in the capital until the afternoon of the next day.  There was an appalling accumulation of letters and telegrams waiting to be worked over, but he let the desk litter go untouched and called up the hotel, only to have a small disappointment sent in over the wire.  His father, Mrs. Blount, and their guest had left for Wartrace Hall some time during the forenoon, and there had been nothing said in the clerk’s hearing about their return to the city.  Blount hung up the receiver, called it one more opportunity missed, and sat down to attack the desk litter.

Almost the first thing his eye lighted upon was a stenographer’s note stating that Mr. Hathaway, president of the Twin Buttes Lumber Company, had been in several times, and was very anxious to obtain an interview.  Blount pressed the desk button, and the stenographer came in promptly.

“This man Hathaway; what did he want?” was the brusque question shot at the clerk.

“I don’t know.  He said he was stopping at the Inter-Mountain, and he asked me to let him know when you got back.”