“I was looking for you.” He turned and they walked out of the yard together. “I went to your house, and your aunt told me you were here. I’ve got it!” he added excitedly.

“Got what?”

“The agreement!”

She stopped short and seized his arm.

“You mean between Blake, Peck, and Manning?”

“Yes. I’ve got it!”

“Signed?”

“All signed!” And he slapped the breast pocket of his old frock-coat.

“Let me see it! Please!”

He handed it to her, and by the light of a street lamp she glanced it through.

“Oh, it’s too good to believe!” she murmured exultantly. “Oh, oh!” She thrust it into her bosom, where it lay beside Doctor Sherman’s confession. “Come, we must hurry!” she cried. And with her arm through his they set off in the direction of the Square.

“When did Mr. Manning get this?” she asked, after a moment.

“I saw him about an hour ago. He had then just got it.”

“It’s splendid! Splendid!” she ejaculated. “But I have something, too!”

“Yes?” queried the old man.

“Something even better.” And as they hurried on she told him of Doctor Sherman’s confession.

Old Hosie burst into excited congratulations, but she quickly checked him.

“We’ve no time now to rejoice,” she said. “We must think how we are going to use these statements – how we are going to get this information before the people, get it before them at once, and get it before them so they must believe it.”

They walked on in silent thought. From the moment they had left the Shermans’ gate the two had heard a tremendous cheering from the direction of the Square, and had seen a steady, up-reaching glow, at intervals brilliantly bespangled by rockets and roman candles. Now, as they came into Main Street, they saw that the Court House yard was jammed with an uproarious multitude. Within the speakers’ stand was throned the Westville Brass Band; enclosing the stand in an imposing semicircle was massed the Blake Marching Club, in uniforms, their flaring torches adding to the illumination of the festoons of incandescent bulbs; and spreading fanwise from this uniformed nucleus it seemed that all of Westville was assembled – at least all of Westville that did not watch at fevered bedsides.

At the moment that Katherine and Old Hosie, walking along the southern side of Main Street, came opposite the stand, the first speaker concluded his peroration and resumed his seat. There was an outburst of “Blake! Blake! Blake!” from the enthusiastic thousands; but the Westville Brass Band broke in with the chorus of “Marching Through Georgia.” The stirring thunder of the band had hardly died away, when the thousands of voices again rose in cries of “Blake! Blake! Blake!”

The chairman with difficulty quieted the crowd, and urged them to have patience, as all the candidates were going to speak, and Blake was not to speak till toward the last. Kennedy was the next orator, and he told the multitude, with much flinging heavenward of loose-jointed arms, what an unparalleled administration the officers to be elected on the morrow would give the city, and how first and foremost it would be their purpose to settle the problem of the water-works in such a manner as to free the city forever from the dangers of another epidemic such as they were now experiencing. As supreme climax to his speech, he lauded the ability, character and public spirit of Blake till superlatives could mount no higher.

When he sat down the crowd went well-nigh mad. But amid the cheering for the city’s favourite, some one shouted the name of Doctor West and with it coupled a vile epithet. At once Doctor West’s name swept through the crowd, hissed, jeered, cursed. This outbreak made clear one ominous fact. The enthusiasm of the multitude was not just ordinary, election-time enthusiasm. Beneath it was smouldering a desire of revenge for the ills they had suffered and were suffering – a desire which at a moment might flame up into the uncontrollable fury of a mob.

Katherine clutched Old Hosie’s arm.

“Did you hear those cries against my father?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I know now what I shall do!”

He saw that her eyes were afire with decision.

“What?”

“I am going across there, watch my chance, slip out upon the speakers’ stand, and expose and denounce Mr. Blake before Mr. Blake’s own audience!”

The audacity of the plan for a moment caught Old Hosie’s breath. Then its dramatic quality fired his imagination.

“Gorgeous!” he exclaimed.

“Come on!” she cried.

She started across the street, with Old Hosie at her heels. But before she reached the opposite curb she paused, and turned slowly back.

“What’s the matter?” asked Old Hosie.

“It won’t do. The people on the stand would pull me down before I got started speaking. And even if I spoke, the people would not believe me. I have got to put this evidence” – she pressed the documents within her bosom – “before their very eyes. No, we have got to think of some other way.”

By this time they were back in the seclusion of the doorway of the Express Building, where they had previously been standing. For several moments the hoarse, vehement oratory of a tired throat rasped upon their heedless ears. Once or twice Old Hosie stole a glance at Katherine’s tensely thoughtful face, then returned to his own meditation.

Presently she touched him on the arm. He looked up.

“I have it this time!” she said, with the quiet of suppressed excitement.

“Yes?”

“We’re going to get out an extra!”

“An extra?” he exclaimed blankly.

“Yes. Of the Express!”

“An extra of the Express?”

“Yes. Get it out before this crowd scatters, and in it reproductions of these documents!”

He stared at her. “Son of Methuselah!” Then he whistled. Then his look became a bit strange, and there was a strange quality to his voice when he said:

“So you are going to give Arnold Bruce’s paper the credit of the exposure?”

His tone told her the meaning that lay behind his words. He had known of the engagement, and he knew that it was now broken. She flushed.

“It’s the best way,” she said shortly.

“But you can’t do it alone!”

“Of course not.” Her voice began to gather energy. “We’ve got to get the Express people here at once – and especially Mr. Harper. Everything depends on Mr. Harper. He’ll have to get the paper out.”

“Yes! Yes!” said Old Hosie, catching her excitement.

“You look for him here in this crowd – and, also, if you can see to it, send some one to get the foreman and his people. I’ll look for Mr. Harper at his hotel. We’ll meet here at the office.”

With that they hurried away on their respective errands. Arrived at the National House, where Billy Harper lived, Katherine walked into the great bare office and straight up to the clerk, whom the mass-meeting had left as the room’s sole occupant.

“Is Mr. Harper in?” she asked quickly.

The clerk, one of the most prodigious of local beaux, was startled by this sudden apparition.

“I – I believe he is.”

“Please tell him at once that I wish to see him.”

He fumbled the white wall of his lofty collar with an embarrassed hand.

“Excuse me, Miss West, but the fact is, I’m afraid he can’t see you.”

“Give him my name and tell him I simply must see him.”

The clerk’s embarrassment waxed greater.

“I – I guess I should have said it the other way around,” he stammered. “I’m afraid you won’t want to see him.”

“Why not?”

“The fact is – he’s pretty much cut up, you know – and he’s been so worried that – that – well, the plain fact is,” he blurted out, “Mr. Harper has been drinking.”

“To-night?”

“Yes.”

“Much?”

“Well – I’m afraid quite a little.”

“But he’s here?”

“He’s in the bar-room.”

Katherine’s heart had been steadily sinking.

“I must see him anyhow!” she said desperately. “Please call him out!”

The clerk hesitated, in even deeper embarrassment. This affair was quite without precedent in his career.

“You must call him out – this second! Didn’t you hear me?”

“Certainly, certainly.”

He came hastily from behind his desk and disappeared through a pair of swinging wicker doors. After a moment he reappeared, alone, and his manner showed a degree of embarrassment even more acute.

Katherine crossed eagerly to meet him.

“You found Mr. Harper?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“I couldn’t make him understand. And even if I could, he’s – he’s – well,” he added with a painful effort, “he’s in no condition for you to talk to, Miss West.”

Katherine gazed whitely at the clerk for a moment. Then without a word she stepped by him and passed through the wicker door. With a glance she took in the garishly lighted room – its rows of bottles, its glittering mirrors, its white-aproned bartender, its pair of topers whose loyalty to the bar was stronger than the lure of oratory and music at the Square. And there at a table, his head upon his arms, sat the loosely hunched body of him who was the foundation of all her present hopes.

She moved swiftly across the sawdusted floor and shook the acting editor by the shoulder.

“Mr. Harper!” she called into his ear.

She shook him again, and again she called his name.

“Le’ me ’lone,” he grunted thickly. “Wanter sleep.”

She was conscious that the two topers had paused in mid-drink and were looking her way with a grinning, alcoholic curiosity. She shook the editor with all her strength.

“Mr. Harper!” she called fiercely.

“G’way!” he mumbled. “’M busy. Wanter sleep.”

Katherine gazed down at the insensate mass in utter hopelessness. Without him she could do nothing, and the precious minutes were flying. Through the night came a rumble of applause and fast upon it the music of another patriotic air.

In desperation she turned to the bartender.

“Can’t you help me rouse him?” she cried. “I’ve simply got to speak to him!”

That gentleman had often been appealed to by frantic women as against customers who had bought too liberally. But Katherine was a new variety in his experience. There was a great deal too much of him about the waist and also beneath the chin, but there was good-nature in his eyes, and he came from behind his counter and bore himself toward Katherine with a clumsy and ornate courtesy.

“Don’t see how you can, Miss. He’s been hittin’ an awful pace lately. You see for yourself how far gone he is.”

“But I must speak to him – I must! Surely there is some extreme measure that would bring him to his senses!”

“But, excuse me; you see, Miss, Mr. Harper is a reg’lar guest of the hotel, and I wouldn’t dare go to extremes. If I was to make him mad – ”

“I’ll take all the blame!” she cried. “And afterward he’ll thank you for it!”

The bartender scratched his thin hair.

“Of course, I want to help you, Miss, and since you put it that way, all right. You say I can go the limit?”

“Yes! Yes!”

The bartender retired behind his bar and returned with a pail of water. He removed the young editor’s hat.

“Stand back, Miss; it’s ice cold,” he said; and with a swing of his pudgy arms he sent the water about Harper’s head, neck, and upper body.

The young fellow staggered up with a gasping cry. His blinking eyes saw the bartender, with the empty pail. He reached for the tumbler before him.

“Damn you, Murphy!” he growled. “I’ll pay you – ”

But Katherine stepped quickly forward and touched his dripping sleeve.

“Mr. Harper!” she said.

He slowly turned his head. Then the hand with the upraised tumbler sank to the table, and he stared at her.

“Mr. Harper,” she said sharply, slowly, trying to drive her words into his dulled brain, “I’ve got to speak to you! At once!”

He continued to blink at her stupidly. At length his lips opened.

“Miss West,” he said thickly.

She shook him fiercely.

“Pull yourself together! I’ve got to speak to you!”

At this moment Mr. Murphy, who had gone once more behind his bar, reappeared bearing a glass. This he held out to Harper.

“Here, Billy, put this down. It’ll help straighten you up.”

Harper took the glass in a trembling hand and swallowed its contents.

“And now, Miss,” said the bartender, putting Harper’s dry hat on him, “the thing to do is to get him out in the cold air, and walk him round a bit. I’d do it for you myself,” he added gallantly, “but everybody’s down at the Square and there ain’t no one here to relieve me.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.”

“It’s nothing at all, Miss,” said he with a grandiloquent gesture of a hairy, bediamonded hand. “Glad to do it.”

She slipped her arm through the young editor’s.

“And now, Mr. Harper, we must go.”

Billy Harper vaguely understood the situation and there was a trace of awakening shame in his husky voice.

“Are you sure – you want to be seen with me – like this?”

“I must, whether I want to or not,” she said briefly; and she led him through the side door out into the frosty night.

The period that succeeded will ever remain in Katherine’s mind as matchless in her life for agonized suspense. She was ever crying out frantically to herself, why did this man she led have to be in such a condition at this the time when he was needed most? While she rapidly walked her drenched and shivering charge through the deserted back streets, the enthusiasm of Court House Square reverberated maddeningly in her ears. She realized how rapidly time was flying – and yet, aflame with desire for action as she was, all she could do was to lead this brilliant, stupefied creature to and fro, to and fro. She wondered if she would be able to bring him to his senses in time to be of service. To her impatience, which made an hour of every moment, it seemed she never would. But her hope was all on him, and so doggedly she kept him going.

Presently he began to lurch against her less heavily and less frequently; and soon, his head hanging low in humiliation, he started shiveringly to mumble out an abject apology. She cut him short.

“We’ve no time for apologies. There’s work to be done. Is your head clear enough to understand?”

“I think so,” he said humbly, albeit somewhat thickly.

“Listen then! And listen hard!”

Briefly and clearly she outlined to him her discoveries and told him of the documents she had just secured. She did not realize it, but this recital of hers was, for the purpose of sobering him, better far than a douche of ice-water, better far than walking in the tingling air. She was appealing to, stimulating, the most sensitive organ of the born newspaper man, his sense of news. Before she was through he had come to a pause beneath a sputtering arc light, and was interrupting her with short questions, his eyes ablaze with excitement.

“God!” he ejaculated when she had finished, “that would make the greatest newspaper story that ever broke loose in this town!”

She trembled with an excitement equal to his own.

“And I want you to make it into the greatest newspaper story that ever broke loose in this town!”

“But to-morrow the voting – ”

“There’s no to-morrow about it! We’ve got to act to-night. You must get out an extra of the Express.”

“An extra of the Express!”

“Yes. And it must be on the streets before that mass-meeting breaks up.”

“Oh, my God, my God!” Billy whispered in awe to himself, forgetting how cold he was as his mind took in the plan. Then he started away almost on a run. “We’ll do it! But first, we’ve got to get the press-room gang.”

“I’ve seen to that. I think we’ll find them waiting at the office.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated Billy. “Miss West, to-morrow, when there’s more time, I’m going to apologize to you, and everybody, for – ”

“If you get out this extra, you won’t need to apologize to anybody.”

“But to-night, if you’ll let me,” continued Billy, “I want you to let me say that you’re a wonder!”

Katherine let this praise go by unheeded, and as they hurried toward the Square she gave him details she had omitted in her outline. When they reached the Express office they found Old Hosie, who told them that the foreman and the mechanical staff were in the press-room. A shout from Billy down the stairway brought the foreman running up.

“Do you know what’s doing, Jake?” cried Billy.

“Yes. Mr. Hollingsworth told me.”

“Everything ready?”

“Sure, Billy. We’re waiting for your copy.”

“Good! First of all get these engraved.” He excitedly handed the foreman Katherine’s two documents. “Each of ’em three columns wide. We’ll run ’em on the front page. And, Jake, if you let those get lost, I’ll shoot you so full of holes your wife’ll think she’s married to a screen door! Now chase along with you!”

Billy threw off his drenched coat, slipped into an old one hanging on a hook, dropped into a chair before a typewriter, ran in a sheet of paper, and without an instant’s hesitation began to rattle off the story – and Katherine, in a sort of fascination, stood gazing at that worth-while spectacle, a first-class newspaperman in full action.

But suddenly he gave a cry of dismay and his arms fell to his sides.

“My mind sees the story all right,” he groaned. “I don’t know whether it’s that ice-water or the drink, but my arms are so shaky I can’t hit the keys straight.”

On the instant Katherine had him out of the chair and was in his place.

“I studied typewriting along with my law,” she said rapidly. “Dictate it to me on the machine.”

There was not a word of comment. At once Billy began talking, and the keys began to whir beneath Katherine’s hands. The first page finished, Billy snatched it from her, gave a roar of “Copy!” glanced it through with a correcting pencil, and thrust it into the hands of an in-rushing boy.

As the boy scuttled away, a thunderous cheering arose from the Court House yard – applause that outsounded a dozen-fold all that had gone before.

“What’s that?” asked Katherine of Old Hosie, who stood at the window looking down upon the Square.

“It’s Blake, trying to speak. They’re giving him the ovation of his life!”

Katherine’s face set. “H’m!” said Billy grimly, and plunged again into his dictation. Now and then the uproar that followed a happy phrase of Blake almost drowned the voice of Billy, now and then Old Hosie from his post at the window broke in with a sentence of description of the tumultuous scene without; but despite these interruptions the story rattled swiftly on. Again and again Billy ran to the sink at the back of the office and let the clearing water splash over his head; his collar was a shapeless rag; he had to keep thrusting his dripping hair back from his forehead; his slight, chilled body was shivering in every member; but the story kept coming, coming, coming, a living, throbbing creation from his thin and twitching lips.

As Katherine’s flying hands set down the words, she thrilled as though this story were a thing entirely new to her. For Billy Harper, whatever faults inheritance or habit had fixed upon him, was a reporter straight from God. His trained mind had instantly seized upon and mastered all the dramatic values of the complicated story, and his English, though crude and rough-and-tumble from his haste, was vivid passionate, rousing. He told how Doctor West was the victim of a plot, a plot whose great victim was the city and people of Westville, and this plot he outlined in all its details. He told of Doctor Sherman’s part, at Blake’s compulsion. He told of the secret league between Blake and Peck. He declared the truth of the charges for which Bruce was then lying in the county jail. And finally – though this he did at the beginning of his story – he drove home in his most nerve-twanging words the fact that Blake the benefactor, Blake the applauded, was the direct cause of the typhoid epidemic.

As a fresh sheet was being run into the machine toward the end of the story there was another tremendous outburst from the Square, surpassing even the one of half an hour before.

“Blake’s just finished his speech,” called Old Hosie from the window. “The crowd wants to carry him on their shoulders.”

“They’d better hurry up; this is one of their last chances!” cried Billy.

Then he saw the foreman enter with a look of concern. “Any thing wrong, Jake?”

“One of the linotype men has skipped out,” was the answer.

“Well, what of that?” said Harper. “You’ve got one left.”

“It means that we’ll be delayed in getting out the paper. I hadn’t noticed it before, but Grant’s been gone some time. We’re quite a bit behind you, and Simmons alone can’t begin to handle that copy as fast as you’re sending it down.”

“Do the best you can,” said Billy.

He started at the dictation again. Then he broke off and called sharply to the foreman:

“Hold on, Jake. D’you suppose Grant slipped out to give the story away?”

“I don’t know. But Grant was a Blake man.”

Billy swore under his breath.

“But he hadn’t seen the best part of the story,” said the foreman. “I’d given him only that part about Blake and Peck.”

“Well, anyhow, it’s too late for him to hurt us any,” said Billy, and once more plunged into the dictation.

Fifteen minutes later the story was finished, and Katherine leaned back in her chair with aching arms, while Billy wrote a lurid headline across the entire front page. With this he rushed down into the composing-room to give orders about the make-up. When he returned he carried a bunch of long strips.

“These are the proofs of the whole thing, documents and all, except the last part of the story,” he said. “Let’s see if they’ve got it all straight.”

He laid the proofs on Katherine’s desk and was drawing a chair up beside her, when the telephone rang.

“Who can want to talk to us at such an hour?” he impatiently exclaimed, taking up the receiver.

“Hello! Who’s this?.. What!.. All right. Hold the wire.”

With a surprised look he pushed the telephone toward Katherine.

“Somebody to talk to you,” he said.

“To talk to me!” exclaimed Katherine. “Who?”

“Harrison Blake,” said Billy.