That convention had run amuck, it was a mass of wild men who were feeling liberty from oppression for the first time and gloried in their new and sudden freedom from ring rule.

Then the delegates who came upon their feet roared the unanimous nomination of Archer Converse.

In the gale of that acclaim the opposition uttered no protest; the delegates who still remained loyal to the machine scowled and kept their seats.

Ducking under the tossing arms of men who flung aloft their hats and cheered with the frenzy of delight that the amazing victory inspired, Richard Dodd escaped to the rear of the hall and jammed himself into the press of the spectators.  He hid behind a hedge of bodies and then dared to look at Colonel Dodd’s face.  The mighty passion which flamed on the uncle’s countenance was revealed to the nephew’s gaze even at that distance.  The colonel was at the edge of the platform and was beckoning imperiously to some one.  Young Dodd saw Detective Mullaney work his way out of the throng which surrounded Walker Farr; the officer was obviously obeying the summons of Colonel Dodd and marched to the platform and climbed on a chair in order to converse with the angry man who had beckoned.

And when Richard Dodd saw that conference begin overwhelming fear swept out of his soul all other emotions.  He no longer had eyes for that girl in the gallery.  Not even love and the promise she had made availed to stay him.  Panic allowed him no time for planning an excuse or framing a lie.  In playing for the stakes he had exacted he had felt that his uncle would hold no autopsy on the price of success.  But five thousand dollars plucked from the Dodd pocket by a falsehood for which no excuse could be offered!  And on top of that a crushing defeat which had been made definite and final by the work which Colonel Dodd had paid for!

The nephew saw Mullaney shake his head and throw up his hands in appeal and protest.

That spectacle made Richard Dodd a fugitive who thought only of saving himself.  He fought his way through the crowd and ran out of the hall.  The thought of facing Symonds Dodd in that crisis or of waiting to be dragged before the furious tyrant—­that thought lashed the traitor into mad flight.

He glanced up at the clock in the First National tower.  He had three minutes before the bank’s closing time.  He controlled his emotions as best he could and presented the check at the paying-teller’s grill.  The money was counted out to him without question, and when he held the thick packet in his hand he realized still more acutely in what position he stood in his affairs with Symonds Dodd.

He rushed to a garage, secured his car, and fled.

“I tell you I gave my nephew a check for five thousand dollars,” insisted the colonel.  “And the Dodds don’t lie to each other!”

“Then they have begun to do it,” declared Mullaney.  “He has double-crossed the two of us.  There was never any talk between us of more than five hundred for the job.”