“I haven’t secured a warrant yet—­but I’ll take your dare,” he announced.  He started to come down the aisle.

“Just one moment,” called a stentorian voice in the gallery.  “You’re wrong, my man, down there.  I don’t want to see an innocent person disgraced in public nor an officer get himself into a scrape.  That man is not Nelson Sinkler.”

“What are we running here—­a state convention or a police court?” Colonel Dodd demanded, leaping up and grabbing the arm of the presiding officer.  “Order all those men ejected from the hall.”

But at that moment the convention was not in the control of the chairman.  Irregular as it all was, human nature demanded to be shown there and then.

Delegates arose, shouting, and surrounded Farr, making effectual bulwarks against Mullaney with their bodies.  Voices asked the stranger in the gallery for information, and he motioned the vociferous mob into silence.

“I am a United States post-office inspector, and I can easily prove my identity, gentlemen.  I’m here in this convention merely as a spectator, killing time till my train leaves.  But I know Nelson Sinkler because I arrested him a month or so ago after he had been a fugitive for two years.  He killed a mail clerk.  He is now awaiting trial.  If that man down there is arrested as being Nelson Sinkler it will mean a lot of trouble for somebody.”  He sat down.

“Who are you?” yelled a chorus of the ring’s henchmen.  They pressed as near to Farr as his body-guard would permit and shook their fists at him.

“I am a man and not a spirit,” he said in the first silence—­and silence came quickly, for they were eager to hear.  “You can see that for yourselves.  But just now I am less a man than a Voice.”  He shouted that last word.  “The Voice calls you to rebuke the kind of politics that has just been attempted here.  You have seen, you have heard!  Will you indorse it by your votes?  Will you keep in power that gang that has attempted it in the desperation of defeat?”

“No,” the voices of men tumultuously replied.

Reckless and unjust attack had never tossed a more golden opportunity into a man’s hands.

“Then come over to the side of decency, my men.  Nominate a champion who will be spotless and unafraid.  There is war in this commonwealth instead of politics.  Through one war the great patriot of this state led his people with high chivalry.  For the next governor of this state, in these trying times, I nominate the son of that patriot—­the Honorable Archer Converse of this city—­God bless him!”

“We’re licked,” gasped Colonel Dodd, trying to make the state chairman hear him, for the roar that rocked the great hall was deafening.  “A boomerang has come back and mowed us flatter than an oven door in tophet.”

In the rout, in the retreat—­horse, foot and dragoons—­crisp orders were issued and obeyed.  The friends of Governor Harwood had only one resource—­it was to save that gentleman’s face.  His nomination was withdrawn.