Jake Wheeler, although in many respects a fool, was one of the most efficient pack of political hounds that the state has ever known.  By six o’clock on Friday morning he was descending a brook valley on the Clovelly side of the mountain, and by seven was driving between the forest and river meadows of the Rajah’s domain, and had come in sight of the big white house with its somewhat pretentious bay-windows and Gothic doorway; it might be dubbed the palace of these parts.  The wide river flowed below it, and the pastures so wondrously green in the morning sun were dotted with fat cattle and sheep.  Jake was content to borrow a cut of tobacco from the superintendent and wonder aimlessly around the farm until Mr. Sutton’s family prayers and breakfast were accomplished.  We shall not concern ourselves with the message or the somewhat lengthy manner in which it was delivered.  Jake had merely dropped in by accident, but the Rajah listened coldly while he picked his teeth, said he didn’t know whether he was going to Brampton or not—­hadn’t decided; didn’t know whether he could get to Coniston or not—­his affairs were multitudinous now.  In short, he set Jake to thinking deeply as his horse walked up the western heights of Coniston on the return journey.  He had, let it be repeated, a sure instinct once his nose was fairly on the scent, and he was convinced that a war of great magnitude was in the air, and he; Jake Wheeler, was probably the first in all the elate to discover it!  His blood leaped at the thought.

The hill-Rajah’s defiance, boiled down, could only mean one thing,—­that somebody with sufficient power and money was about to lock horns with Jethro Bass.  Not for a moment did Jake believe that, for all his pomp and circumstance, the Honorable Heth Sutton was a big enough man to do this.  Jake paid to the Honorable Heth all the outward respect that his high position demanded, but he knew the man through and through.  He thought of the Honorable Heth’s reform speech in Congress, and laughed loudly in the echoing woods.  No, Mr. Sutton was not the man to lead a fight.  But to whom had he promised his allegiance?  This question puzzled Mr. Wheeler all the way home, and may it be said finally for many days thereafter.  He slid into Coniston in the dusk, big with impending events, which he could not fathom.  As to giving Jethro the careless answer of the hill-Rajah, that was another matter.

The Fourth of July came at last, nor was any contradiction made in the Brampton papers that the speech of the Honorable Heth Sutton had been cancelled.  Instead, advertisements appeared in the ‘Brampton Clarion’ announcing the fact in large letters.  When Cynthia read this advertisement to Jethro, he chuckled again.  They were under the butternut tree, for the evenings were long now.

“Will you take me to Brampton, Uncle Jethro?” said she, letting fall the paper on her lap.

“W-who’s to get in the hay?” said Jethro.