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"Here," cried Keast, as he entered, closing the door behind him, "where's the Governor? Here, Magnus, I've been looking for you. The crowd has gone wild out there. You've got to talk 'em down. Come out there and give those blacklegs the lie. They are saying you are hiding." But before Magnus could reply, Garnett turned to Keast. "Well, that's what we want him to do, and he won't do it."
"And then," protested a third speaker, "that ain't the way to do if he DID do it bribing legislatures. Why, we were bucking against corrupt politics. We couldn't afford to be corrupt." Keast turned away with a gesture of impatience. He pushed his way farther on. At last, opening a small door in a hallway back of the stage, he came upon Magnus. The room was tiny. It was a dressing-room.
There remained in the harness room besides Vanamee and Presley Magnus Derrick, Annixter, old Broderson Harran, Garnett from the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, Chattern of the Bonanza, about a score of others, ranchers from various parts of the county, and, last of all, Dabney, ignored, silent, to whom nobody spoke and who, as yet, had not uttered a word.
In this impalpable tangle sat the men and women tenants of cottages, labourers, farm servants and their children, all who had been helping with the harvest. Jenifer Keast was there, flushed now instead of with that mysterious pallor of the dusk, and to her Archelaus made his way with a sort of bashful openness, followed by glances and sly smiles.
Osterman rolled bullets of bread and shot them with astonishing force up and down the table, but the others Dyke, old Broderson, Caraher, Harran Derrick, Hooven, Cutter, Garnett of the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, and Chattern of the Bonanza occupied themselves with eating as much as they could before the supper gave out.
"I'm not saying nothing against the brat," cried Tom in exasperated tones; "anyone'd think I wanted'n to die by the way you go on at me. I don't it don't matter to me, for I'm going to be a lawyer like Mr. Tonkin to Penzance, but Archelaus'll be a fool if he don't look higher than Jenifer Keast." "I'm not looken' to lead no maid," cried the badgered Archelaus, snatching the light.
"Jenifer Keast, maybe?" pursued his mother. "Happen Jenifer, happen another. A maid's a maid," mumbled the disconcerted Archelaus. Tom put his boots on the settle and stood up. "It makes me sick to hear you, Archelaus," he declared slowly, but with extraordinary venom for a boy of fifteen; "Jenifer Keast! Have you no sense of who you are that you should think of Jenifer Keast?"
Declining to take the chair of presiding officer which Garnett offered him, the Governor withdrew to an angle of the stage, where he was joined by Keast. This one, still unalterably devoted to Magnus, acquainted him briefly with the tenor of the speeches that had been made. "I am ashamed of them, Governor," he protested indignantly, "to lose their nerve now!
"We were obliged to shut our eyes to means," faltered Magnus. "There was no other way to " Then suddenly and with the last dregs of his resolution, he concluded with: "Yes, I gave them two thousand dollars each." "Oh, hell! Oh, my God!" exclaimed Keast, sitting swiftly down upon the ragged sofa. There was a long silence. A sense of poignant embarrassment descended upon those present.
"Briber, briber Magnus Derrick, unconvicted briber! Put him out." Keast, beside himself with anger, pushed down the aisle underneath where the recalcitrant group had its place and, shaking his fist, called up at them: "You were paid to break up this meeting.
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