She realized now how desperate was this man’s determination, how tightly his lips were locked. But she had picked up another thread of this tangled skein, and that made her exult with a new hope. She went spiritedly at the cross-examination of Doctor Sherman, striving to break him down. So sharp, so rigid, so searching were her questions, that there were murmurs in the audience against such treatment of a sincere, high-minded man of God. But the swiftness and cleverness of her attack availed her nothing. Doctor Sherman, nerved by last evening’s talk beside the river, made never a slip.

From the moment she reluctantly discharged him she felt that her chance – her chance for that day, at least – was gone. But she was there to fight to the end, and she put her only witness, her father, upon the stand. His defence, that he was the victim of a misunderstanding, was smiled at by the court-room – and smiled at with apparently good reason, since Kennedy, in anticipation of the line of defense, had introduced the check from the Acme Filter Company which Dr. West had turned over to the hospital board, to prove that the donation from the filter company had been in Dr. West’s hands at the time he had received the bribe from Mr. Marcy. Dr. West testified that the letter containing this check had not been opened until many days after his arrest, and Katharine took the stand and swore that it was she herself who had opened the envelope. But even while she testified she saw that she was not believed; and she had to admit within herself that her father’s story appeared absurdly implausible, compared to the truth-visaged falsehoods of the prosecution.

But when the evidence was all in and the time for argument was come, Katherine called up her every resource, she remembered that truth was on her side, and she presented the case clearly and logically, and ended with a strong and eloquent plea for her father. As she sat down, there was a profound hush in the court-room.

Her father squeezed her hand. Tears stood in his eyes.

“Whatever happens,” he whispered, “I’m proud of my daughter.”

Kennedy’s address was brief and perfunctory, for the case seemed too easy to warrant his exertion. Still stimulated by the emotion aroused by her own speech and the sense of the righteousness of her cause, Katherine watched the jury go out with a fluttering hope. She still clung to hope when, after a short absence, the jury filed back in. She rose and held her breath while they took their seats.

“You have reached a verdict, gentlemen?” asked Judge Kellog.

“We have,” answered the foreman.

“What is it?”

“We find the defendant guilty.”

Doctor West let out a little moan, and his head fell forward into his arms. Katherine bent over him and whispered a word of comfort into his ear; then rose and made a motion for a new trial. Judge Kellog denied the motion, and haltingly asked Doctor West to step forward to the bar. Doctor West did so, and the two old men, who had been friends since childhood, looked at each other for a space. Then in a husky voice Judge Kellog pronounced sentence: One thousand dollars fine and six months in the county jail.

It was a light sentence – but enough to blacken an honest name for life, enough to break a sensitive heart like Doctor West’s.

A little later Katherine, holding an arm of her father tightly within her own, walked with him and fat, good-natured Sheriff Nichols over to the old brick county jail. And yet a little later, erect, eyes straight before her, she came down the jail steps and started homeward.

As she was passing along the Square, immediately before her Harrison Blake came out of his stairway and started across the sidewalk to his waiting car. Discretion urged her to silence; but passion was the stronger. She stepped squarely up before him and flashed him a blazing look.

“Well – and so you think you’ve won!” she cried in a low voice.

His colour changed, but instantly he was master of himself.

“What, Katherine, you still persist in that absurd idea of yesterday.”

“Oh, drop that pretence! We know each other too well for that!” She moved nearer and, trembling from head to foot, her passionate defiance burst all bounds. “You think you have won, don’t you!” she hotly cried. “Well, let me tell you that this affair is not merely a battle that was to-day won and ended! It’s a war – and I have just begun to fight!”

And sweeping quickly past him, she walked on into Main Street and down it through the staring crowds – very erect, a red spot in either cheek, her eyes defiantly meeting every eye.

CHAPTER XII
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT BRUCE’S DOOR

On the following morning Bruce had just finished an editorial on Doctor West’s trial, and was busily thumping out an editorial on the local political situation – the Republican and Democratic conventions were both but a few days off – when, lifting his scowling gaze to his window while searching for the particular word he needed, he saw Katherine passing along the sidewalk across the street. Her face was fresh, her step springy; hers was any but a downcast figure. Forgetting his editorial, he watched her turn the corner of the Square and go up the broad, worn steps of the dingy old county jail.

“Well, what do we think of her?” queried a voice at his elbow.

Bruce turned abruptly.

“Oh, it’s you, Billy. D’you see Blake?”

“Yes.” The young fellow sank loungingly into the atlas-seated chair. “He wouldn’t say anything definite. Said it was up to the convention to pick the candidates. But it’s plain Kennedy’s his choice for mayor, and we’ll be playing perfectly safe in predicting Kennedy’s nomination.”

“And Peck?”

“Blind Charlie said it was too early to make any forecasts. In doubt as to whom they’d put forward for mayor.”

“Would Blake say anything about Doctor West’s conviction?”

“Sorry for Doctor West’s sake – but the case was clear – trial fair – a wholesome example to the city – and some more of that line of talk.”

Bruce grunted.

The reporter leisurely lit a cigarette.

“But how about the lady lawyer, eh?” He playfully prodded his superior’s calf with his pointed shoe. “I suppose you’ll fire me off your rotten old sheet for saying it, but I still think she made a damned good showing considering that she had no case – and considering also that she was a woman.” Again he thrust his toe into his chief. “Considering she was a woman – eh, Arn?”

“Shut up, Billy, or I will fire you,” growled Bruce.

“Oh, all right,” answered the other cheerfully. “After half a year of the nerve-racking social whirl of this metropolis, I think it would be sort of restful to be back in dear, little, quiet Chicago. But seriously now, Arn, you’ve got to admit she’s good-looking?”

“Good looks don’t make a lawyer!” retorted Bruce.

“But she’s clever – got ideas – opinions of her own, and strong ones too.”

“Perhaps.”

The reporter blew out a cloud of smoke.

“Arn, I’ve been thinking about a very interesting possibility.”

“Well, make it short, and get in there and write your story!”

“I’ve been thinking,” continued Billy meditatively, “over what an interesting situation it would make if the super-masculine editor of the Express should fall in love with the lady law – ”

Bruce sprang up.

“Confound you, Billy! If I don’t crack that empty little – ”

But Billy, tilted back in his chair, held out his cigarette case imperturbably.

“Take one, Arn. You’ll find them very soothing for the nerves.”

“You impertinent little pup, you!” He grabbed Billy by his long hair, held him a moment – then grinned affectionately and took a cigarette. “You’re the worst ever!” He dropped back into his chair. “Now shut up!”

“All right. But speaking impersonally, and with the unemotional aloofness of a critic, you’ll have to admit that it would make a good dramatic situation.”

“Blast you!” cried the editor. “Shall I fire you, or chuck you through the window?”

“Inasmuch as our foremost scientists are uniformly agreed that certain unpleasant results may eventuate when the force of gravitation brings a human organism into sudden and severe juxtaposition with a cement sidewalk, I humbly suggest that you fire me. Besides, that act will automatically avenge me, for then your yellow old newspaper will go plum to blazes!”

“For God’s sake, Billy, get out of here and let me work!”

“But, seriously, Arn – I really am serious now” – and all the mischief had gone out of the reporter’s eyes – “that Miss West would have put up a stunning fight if she had had any sort of a case. But she had nothing to fight with. They certainly had the goods on her old man!”

Bruce turned from his machine and regarded the reporter thoughtfully. Then he crossed and closed the door which was slightly ajar, and again fixed his eyes searchingly on young Harper.

“Billy,” he said in a low, impressive voice, “can you keep a big secret?”

At Bruce’s searching, thoughtful gaze a look of humility crept into Billy’s face.

“Oh, I know you’ve got every right to doubt me,” he acknowledged. “I certainly did leak a lot at the mouth in Chicago when I was boozing so much. But you know since you pulled me out of that wild bunch I was drinking my way to hell with and brought me down here, I’ve been screwed tight as a board to the water-wagon!”

“I know it, Billy. I shouldn’t for an instant – ”

“And, Arn,” interrupted Billy, putting his arm contritely across the other’s shoulder, “even though I do joke at you a little – simply can’t help it – you know how eternally grateful I am to you! You’re giving me the chance of my life to make a man of myself. People in this town don’t half appreciate you; they don’t know you for what I know you – the best fellow that ever happened!”

“There, there! Cut it out, cut it out!” said Bruce gruffly, gripping the other’s hand.

“That’s always the way,” said Billy, resentfully. “Your only fault is that you are so infernally bull-headed that a fellow can’t even thank you.”

“You’re thanking me the right way when you keep yourself bolted fast to the water-cart. What I started out to tell you, what I want you to keep secret, is this: They put the wrong man in jail yesterday.”

“What!” ejaculated Billy, springing up.

“I tell you this much because I want you to keep your eye on the story. Hell’s likely to break loose there any time, and I want you to be ready to handle it in case I should have to be off the job.”

“Good God, old man!” Billy stared at him. “What’s behind all this? If Doctor West’s the wrong man, then who’s the right one?”

“I can’t tell you any more now.”

“But how did you find this out?”

“I said I couldn’t tell you any more.”

A knowing look came slowly into Billy’s face.

“H’m. So that was what Miss West called here about day before yesterday.”

“Get in there and write your story,” said Bruce shortly, and again sat down before his typewriter.

Billy stood rubbing his head dazedly for a long space, then he slowly moved to the door. He opened it and paused.

“Oh, I say, Arn,” he remarked in an innocent tone.

“Yes?”

“After all,” he drawled, “it would make an interesting dramatic situation, wouldn’t it?”

Bruce whirled about and threw a statesman’s year book, but young Harper was already on the safe side of the door; and the incorrigible Billy was saved from any further acts of reprisal being attempted upon his person by the ringing of Bruce’s telephone.

Bruce picked up the instrument.

“Hello. Who’s this?” he demanded.

“Mr. Peck,” was the answer.

“What! You don’t mean ‘Blind Charlie’?”

“Yes. I called up to see if you could come over to the hotel for a little talk about politics.”

“If you want to talk to me you know where to find me! Good-by!”

“Wait! Wait! What time will you be in?”

“The paper goes to press at two-thirty. Any time after then.”

“I’ll drop around before three.”

Four hours later Bruce was glancing through that afternoon’s paper, damp from the press, when there entered his office a stout, half-bald man of sixty-five, with loose, wrinkled, pouchy skin, drooping nose, and a mouth – stained faintly brown at its corners – whose cunning was not entirely masked by a good-natured smile. One eye had a shrewd and beady brightness; the gray film over the other announced it without sight. This was “Blind Charlie” Peck, the king of Calloway County politics until Blake had hurled him from his throne.

Bruce greeted the fallen monarch curtly and asked him to sit down. Bruce did not resume his seat, but half leaned against his desk and eyed Blind Charlie with open disfavour.

The old man settled himself and smiled his good-natured smile at the editor.

“Well, Mr. Bruce, this is mighty dry weather we’re having.”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Well – well – ” said the old man, a little taken aback, “you certainly do jump into the middle of things.”

“I’ve found that the quickest way to get there,” retorted Bruce. “You know there’s no use in you and me wasting any words. You know well enough what I think of you.”

“I ought to,” returned Blind Charlie, dryly, but with good humour. “You’ve said it often enough.”

“Well, that there may be no mistake about it, I’ll say it once more. You’re a good-natured, good-hearted, cunning, unprincipled, hardened old rascal of a politician. Now if you don’t want to say what you came here to say, the same route that brings you in here takes you out.”

“Come, come,” said the old man, soothingly. “I think you have said a lot of harder things than were strictly necessary – especially since we both belong to the same party.”

“That’s one reason I’ve said them. You’ve been running the party most of your life – you’re still running it – and see what you’ve made of it. Every decent member is ashamed of it! It stinks all through the state!”

Blind Charlie’s face did not lose its smile of imperturbable good nature. It was a tradition of Calloway County that he had never lost his temper.

“You’re a very young man, Mr. Bruce,” said the old politician, “and young blood loves strong language. But suppose we get away from personalities, and get away from the party’s past and talk about its present and its future.”

“I don’t see that it has any present or future to talk about, with you at the helm.”

“Oh, come now! Granted that my ways haven’t been the best for the party. Granted that you don’t like me. Is that any reason we shouldn’t at least talk things over? Now, I admit we don’t stand the shadow of a ghost’s show this election unless we make some changes. You represent the element in the party that has talked most for changes, and I have come to get your views.”

Bruce studied the loose-skinned, flabby face, wondering what was going on behind that old mask.

“What are your own views?” he demanded shortly.

Blind Charlie had taken out a plug of tobacco and with a jack-knife had cut off a thin slice. This, held between thumb and knife-blade, he now slowly transferred to his mouth.

“Perhaps they’re nearer your own than you think. I see, too, that the old ways won’t serve us now. Blake will put up a good ticket. I hear Kennedy is to be his mayor. The whole ticket will be men who’ll be respectable, but they’ll see that Blake gets what he wants. Isn’t that so?”

Bruce thought suddenly of Blake’s scheme to capture the water-works.

“Very likely,” he admitted.

“Now between ourselves,” the old man went on confidingly, “we know that Blake has been getting what he wants for years – of course in a quiet, moderate way. Did you ever think of this, how the people here call me a ‘boss’ but never think of Blake as one? Blake’s an ‘eminent citizen.’ When the fact is, he’s a stronger, cleverer boss than I ever was. My way is the old way; it’s mostly out of date. Blake’s way is the new way. He’s found out that the best method to get the people is to be clean, or to seem clean. If I wanted a thing I used to go out and grab it. If Blake wants a thing he makes it appear that he’s willing to go to considerable personal trouble to take it in order to do a favour to the city, and the people fall all over themselves to give it to him. He’s got the churches lined up as solid behind him as I used to have the saloons. Now I know we can’t beat Blake with the kind of a ticket our party has been putting up. And I know we can’t beat Blake with a respectable ticket, for between our respectables – ”

“Charlie Peck’s respectables!” Bruce interrupted ironically.

“And Blake’s respectables,” the old man continued imperturbably, “the people will choose Blake’s. Are my conclusions right so far?”

“Couldn’t be more right. What next?”

“As I figure it out, our only chance, and that a bare fighting chance, is to put up men who are not only irreproachable, but who are radicals and fighters. We’ve got to do something new, big, sensational, or we’re lost.”

“Well?” said Bruce.

“I was thinking,” said Blind Charlie, “that our best move would be to run you for mayor.”

“Me?” cried Bruce, starting forward.

“Yes. You’ve got ideas. And you’re a fighter.”

Bruce scrutinized the old face, all suspicion.

“See here, Charlie,” he said abruptly, “what the hell’s your game?”

“My game?”

“Oh, come! Don’t expect me to believe in you when you pose as a reformer!”

“See here, Bruce,” said the other a little sharply, “you’ve called me about every dirty word lying around handy in the Middle West. But you never called me a hypocrite.”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not coming to you now pretending that I’ve been holding a little private revival, and that I’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb.”

“Then what’s behind this? What’s in it for you?”

“I’ll tell you – though of course I can’t make you believe me if you don’t want to. I’m getting pretty old – I’m sixty-seven. I may not live till another campaign. I’d like to see the party win once more before I go. That’s one thing. Another is, I’ve got it in for Blake, and want to see him licked. I can’t do either in my way. I can possibly do both in your way. Mere personal satisfaction like this would have been mighty little for me to have got out of an election in the old days. But it’s better than nothing at all” – smiling good-naturedly – “even to a cunning, unprincipled, hardened old rascal of a politician.”

“But what’s the string tied to this offer?”

“None. You can name the ticket, write the platform – ”

“It would be a radical one!” warned Bruce.

“It would have to be radical. Our only chance is in creating a sensation.”

“And if elected?”

“You shall make every appointment without let or hindrance. I know I’d be a fool to try to bind you in any way.”

Bruce was silent a long time, studying the wrinkled old face.

“Well, what do you say?” queried Blind Charlie.

“Frankly, I don’t like being mixed up with you.”

“But you believe in using existing party machinery, don’t you? You’ve said so in the Express.”

“Yes. But I also have said that I don’t believe in using it the way you have.”

“Well, here’s your chance to take it and use it your own way.”

“But what show would I stand? Feeling in town is running strong against radical ideas.”

“I know, I know. But you are a fighter, and with your energy you might turn the current. Besides, something big may happen before election.”

That same thought had been pulsing excitedly in Bruce’s brain these last few minutes. If Katherine could only get her evidence!

Bruce moved to the window and looked out so that that keen one eye of Blind Charlie might not perceive the exultation he could no longer keep out of his face. Bruce did not see the tarnished dome of the Court House – nor the grove of broad elms, shrivelled and dusty – nor the enclosing quadrangle of somnolent, drooping farm horses. He was seeing this town shaken as by an explosion. He was seeing cataclysmic battle, with Blind Charlie become a nonentity, Blake completely annihilated, and himself victorious at the front. And, dream of his dreams! he was seeing himself free to reshape Westville upon his own ideals.

“Well, what do you say?” asked Blind Charlie.

Controlling himself, Bruce turned about.

“I accept, upon the conditions you have named. But at the first sign of an attempt to limit those conditions, I throw the whole business overboard.”

“There will be no such attempt, so we can consider the matter settled.” Blind Charlie held out his hand, which Bruce, with some hesitation, accepted. “I congratulate you, I congratulate myself, I congratulate the party. With you as leader, I think we’ve all got a fighting chance to win.”

They discussed details of Bruce’s candidacy, they discussed the convention; and a little later Blind Charlie departed. Bruce, fists deep in trousers pockets, paced up and down his little office, or sat far down in his chair gazing at nothing, in excited, searching thought. Billy Harper and other members of the staff, who came in to him with questions, were answered absently with monosyllables. At length, when the Court House clock droned the hour of five through the hot, burnt-out air, Bruce washed his hands and brawny fore-arms at the old iron sink in the rear of the reporter’s room, put on his coat, and strode up Main Street. But instead of following his habit and turning off into Station Avenue, where was situated the house in which he and Old Hosie ate and slept and had their quarrels, he continued his way and turned into an avenue beyond – on his face the flush of defiant firmness of the bold man who finds himself doing the exact thing he had sworn that he would never do.

He swung open the gate of the West yard, and with firm step went up to the house and rang the bell. When the screen swung open Katherine herself was in the doorway – looking rather excited, trimly dressed, on her head a little hat wound with a veil.

“May I come in?” he asked shortly.

“Why, certainly,” and she stepped aside.

“I didn’t know.”

He bowed and entered the parlour and stood rather stiffly in the centre of the room.

“My reason for daring to violate your prohibition of three days ago, and enter this house, is that I have something to tell you that may prove to have some bearing upon your father’s case.”

“Please sit down. When I apologized to you I considered the apology as equivalent to removing all signs against trespassing.”

They sat down, and for a moment they gazed at each other, still feeling themselves antagonists, though allies – she smilingly at her ease, he grimly serious.

“Now, please, what is it?” she asked.

Bruce, speaking reservedly at first, told her of Blind Charlie’s offer. As he spoke he warmed up and was quite excited when he ended. “And now,” he cried, “don’t you see how this works in with the fight to clear your father? It’s a great opportunity – haven’t thought out yet just how we can use it – that will depend upon developments, perhaps – but it’s a great opportunity! We’ll sweep Blake completely and utterly from power, reinstate your father in position and honour, and make Westville the finest city of the Middle West!”

But she did not seem to be fired by the torch of his enthusiasm. In fact, there was a thoughtful, questioning look upon her face.

“Well, what do you think of it?” he demanded.

“I have been given to understand,” she said pleasantly, “that it is unwomanly to have opinions upon politics.”

He winced.

“This is hardly the time for sarcasm. What do you think?”

“If you want my frank opinion, I am rather inclined to beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” she replied.

“What do you mean?”

“When a political boss, and a boss notoriously corrupt, offers an office to a good man, I think the good man should be very, very suspicious.”

“You think Peck has some secret corrupt purpose? I’ve been scrutinizing the offer for two hours. I know the ins and outs of the local political situation from A to Z. I know all Peck’s tricks. But I have not found the least trace of a hidden motive.”

“Perhaps you haven’t found it because it’s hidden so shrewdly, so deeply, that it can’t be seen.”

“I haven’t found it because it’s not there to find!” retorted Bruce. “Peck’s motive is just what he told me; I’m convinced he was telling the truth. It’s a plain case, and not an uncommon case, of a politician preferring the chance of victory with a good ticket, to certain defeat with a ticket more to his liking.”

“I judge, then, that you are inclined to accept.”

“I have accepted,” said Bruce.

“I hope it will turn out better than worst suspicion might make us fear.”

“Oh, it will!” he declared. “And mark me, it’s going to turn out a far bigger thing for your father than you seem to realize.”

“I hope that more fervently than do you!”

“I suppose you are going to keep up your fight for your father?”

“I expect to do what I can,” she answered calmly.

“What are you going to do?”

She smiled sweetly, apologetically.

“You forget only one day has passed since the trial. You can hardly expect a woman’s mind to lay new plans as quickly as a man’s.”

Bruce looked at her sharply, as though there might be irony in this; but her face was without guile. She glanced at her watch.

“Pardon me,” he said, noticing this action and standing up. “You have your hat on; you were going out?”

“Yes. And I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me.” She gave him her hand. “I hope you don’t mind my saying it, but if I were you I’d keep all the eyes I’ve got on Mr. Peck.”

“Oh, I’ll not let him fool me!” he answered confidently.

As he walked out of the yard he was somewhat surprised to see the ancient equipage of Mr. Huggins waiting beside the curb. And he was rather more surprised when a few minutes later, as he neared his home, Mr. Huggins drove past him toward the station, with Katherine in the seat behind him. In response to her possessed little nod he amazedly lifted his hat. “Now what the devil is she up to?” he ejaculated, and stared after her till the old carriage turned in beside the station platform. As he reached his gate the eastbound Limited came roaring into the station. The truth dawned upon him. “By God,” he cried, “if she isn’t going back to New York!”