Lynn went madly on--nor looked back. Fifty shots were fired in the air. Visions of pepper-boxes floated before him. He was headed into the herd of cattle. Presendy he stopped and whirled about like magic. A bull, maddened by his fiery red attire, accepted the challenge like a Spanish bovine, and rushed toward him with fire in his eyes. The judge yelled in terror, and bounded away in awful fright, running as he had never run before. The bull was not a half dozen feet behind him, lunging in mad leaps, and bellowing a hoarse murderous roar, while his sharp horns were almost scraping the earth.
The people trembled with fear. The cowboys plunged their spurs deep into their ponies' sides and galloped frantically to the rescue. They came alongside of the maddened bull and, quick as a flash, a score of bullets were buried in the bull's heart, and he fell to the earth in the throes of sudden death.
It was all over in an instant, and then Lynn, seeing the danger was past, shouted, "Say, maybe you fellers think I was throwin' that race with the bull, but I wasn't. No, sirree. I was jist doing my level best and don't you forget it."
So ended the much talked of foot-race,--a contest that forever silenced Judge Lynn from talking of great sprinting exploits on the banks of the Wabash--or anywhere else.
THE Tuesday following the incident of the foot-race was election day. The _Patriot_ prophesied that, out of the three thousand probable votes cast in the county, fully sixteen hundred would be for the Populist ticket.
In private conversation Major Hampton confessed to Hugh that he really had no idea how the election would go. "You see, Stanton," said he, "I am not a politician, although many believe me to be one. No, I am simply trying to use a political organization as a vehicle to carry into practice certain ideas emanating from truth, and which, practically applied, would better the condition of the masses. Politics with me is only a means to an end."
They were in Hugh's room at the hotel when this conversation occurred. The major walked back and forth across the room, as he talked in confidence with Hugh about the probable result of the election.
Hugh noticed that the lines in his old friend's face would deepen at times like veritable hillside gullies that had been plowed deep by the waters of a mountain torrent. Then, again, when he approached his one absorbing, altruistic idea of helping the poor, lifting up the suffering and benefiting mankind by surrounding them with conditions that would enable them to help themselves,--at such times the deep lines and furrows would almost wholly disappear from his face, and it seemed illuminated from some great light within, a phosphorescent reflection from some mighty reservoir of molten gold--perhaps from the old major's heart.