"But who? Who?"
"If you really want to know, the party"s name is Miss Katherine West."
Bruce"s stupefaction outdid itself.
"Katherine West!" he repeated.
Old Hosie could maintain his role no longer.
"Yes, Katherine West!" he burst out in triumphant joy, his words tumbling over one another. "She did it all--every bit of it! And that mob out in front is there to celebrate your election. We knew how things were going to turn out, so we were safe in getting this thing ready in advance. And I don"t mind telling you, young fellow, that this celebration is just as much for her as it is for you. The town has simply gone crazy about her and is looking for a chance to kiss her feet. She said she wouldn"t come to-night, but we all insisted. I promised to bring her, and I"ve got to be off. So good-by!"
Bruce caught his arm.
"Wait, Hosie! Tell me what she did! Tell me the rest!"
"Read that paper I gave you! And here, I brought this for you, too."
He took from his inside pocket a copy of the extra Katherine and Billy Harper had got out the night before. "Those two papers will tell you all there is to tell. And now," he continued, opening a door and pushing Bruce through it, "you just wait in there so I"ll know where to find you when I want you. I"ve got to hustle for a while, for I"m master of ceremonies of this show. How"s that for your old uncle? It"s the first time I"ve ever been connected with a popular movement in my life except to throw bricks at it, and I ain"t so sure I can stand popularity for one whole night."
With that he was gone. Bruce recognized the room into which he had been thrust as the court room in which he had been tried and sentenced, in which Katherine had pleaded her father"s case. Over the judge"s desk, as though in expectation of his coming, a green-shaded drop lamp shed its cone of light. Bruce stumbled forward to the desk, sank into the judge"s chair, and began feverishly to devour the two copies of his paper.
Billy Harper, penitently sober and sworn to sobriety for all his days, had outdone himself on that day"s issue. He told how the voters crowded to the polls in their eagerness to vote for Bruce, and he gave with a tremendous exultation an estimate of Bruce"s majority, which was so great as to be an almost unanimous election. Also he told how Blind Charlie Peck had prudently caught last night"s eleven o"clock express and was now believed to be repairing his health down at Hot Springs, Arkansas. Also he gave a deal of inside history: told how the extra had been gotten out the night before, with the Blake ma.s.s-meeting going on beneath the _Express"s_ windows; told of the scene at the home of Blake, and Blake"s strange march to jail; and, freed from the restraint of Katherine"s presence, who would have forbidden him, he told with a world of praise the story of how she had worked up the case.
The election extra finished, Bruce spread open the extra of the night before, the paper that had transferred him from a prison cell to the mayor"s office, and read the ma.s.s of Katherine"s evidence that Billy had so stirringly set forth. Then the head of the editor of the _Express_, of the mayor of Westville, sank forward into his folded arms and he sat bowed, motionless, upon the judge"s desk.
A great outburst of cheering from the crowd, though louder far than those that had preceded it, did not disturb him; and he did not look up until he heard the door of the court room open. Then he saw that Old Hosie had entered, and with him Katherine.
"I"ll just leave you two for a minute," Old Hosie said rapidly, "while I go out and start things going by introducing the Honourable Hiram Cogsh.e.l.l."
With that the old man took the arm of Katherine"s father, who had been standing just behind, slipped through the door and was gone. A moment later, from in front, there arose a succession of cheers for Doctor West.
Bruce came slowly down from behind the railing of Judge Kellog"s desk and paused before Katherine. She was very white, her breath came with a tremulous irregularity, and she looked at him with wide, wondering, half-fearful eyes.
At first Bruce could not get out a word, such a choking was there in his throat, such a throbbing and whirling through all his being. He dizzily supported himself with a hand upon the back of a bench, and stood and gazed at her.
It was she that broke the silence.
"Mr. Hollingsworth did not tell me--you were here. I"d better go." And she started for the door.
"No--no--don"t!" he said. He drew a step nearer her. "I"ve just read"--holding up the two papers--"what you have done."
"Mr. Harper has--has exaggerated it very much," she returned. Her voice seemed to come with as great a difficulty as his own.
"And I have read," he continued, "how much I owe you."
"It"s--it"s----" She did not finish in words, but a gesture disclaimed all credit.
"It has made me. And I want to thank you, and I do thank you. And I do thank you," he repeated lamely.
She acknowledged his grat.i.tude with an inclination of her head.
Motions came easier than words.
"And since I owe it all to you, since I owe nothing to any political party, I want to tell you that I am going to try to make the very best mayor that I can!"
"I am sure of that," she said.
"I realize that it"s not going to be easy," he went on. "The people seem to be with me now, thanks to you--but as soon as I try to carry out my ideas, I know that both parties will rise up and unite against me. The big fight is still ahead. But since--since you have done it all--I want you to know that I am going to fight straight ahead for the people, no matter what happens to me."
"I know," she said.
"My eyes have been opened to many things about politics," he added.
She did not speak.
Silence fell between them; the room was infiltered by a mult.i.tudinous hum from without. Presently the thought, and with it the fear, that had been rising up stronger and stronger in Bruce for the last half hour, forced itself through his lips.
"I suppose that now--you"ll be going back to New York?"
"No. I have had several cases offered me to-day. I am going to stay in Westville."
"Oh!" he said--and was conscious of a dizzy relief. Then, "I wish you success."
"Thank you."
Again there was a brief silence, both standing and looking in constraint at one another.
"This celebration is very trying, isn"t it?" she said. "I suppose we might sit down while we wait."
"Yes."
They each took the end of a different bench, and rather stiffly sat gazing into the shadowy severity of the big room. Sounding from the front of the Court House they heard rather vaguely the deep-chested, sonorous rhetoric of the Honourable Hiram.
But they heard it for but an instant. Suddenly the court room door flew open and Old Hosie marched straight up before them.
"You"re the dad-blastedest pair of idiots I ever saw!" he burst out, with an exasperation that was not an entire success, for it was betrayed by a little quaver.
They stood up.
"What"s the matter?" stammered Bruce.
"Matter?" cried Old Hosie. "What d"you suppose I left you two people here together for?"
"You said you had to start----"
"Well, couldn"t I have another and a bigger reason? I"ve been listening outside the door here, and the way you people have acted!
See here, you two know you love one another, and yet you act toward each other like a pair of tame icebergs that have just been introduced!"
He turned in a fury upon his nephew, blinking to keep the moisture from his eyes.
"Don"t you love her?" he demanded, pointing to Katherine, who had suddenly grown yet more pale.