"Do? Why, he didn't do a thing but--well, I'll tell it to you in its order. Everything seemed all right. We met at the Cassell House. There wasn't many there at first, not enough to make a quorum. Then in walks old Sol Badger, an' with him Lige Coons from Ball to'nship, an' then who should follow but Pusey himself! Well, I didn't think nothin' of it then, fer I s'posed Pusey had come in as a representative of the press, you know, and o' course, I didn't feel like sayin' an'thin'. Some o' our fellers hadn't got in yit, but when Es Miller arrived, up jumps Pusey an' he says, 'Well, we've got a quorum now, let's get down to business.' I looks at him a minute inquirin' like, an' he smiles back at me with that sof' grin o' his, like a cat, an' he says, 'I hold Mr. Golden's proxy.'"
"Proxies!" exclaimed Garwood, "so that was it!"
"Yes sir, ev'ry one o' them fellers had proxies, an'--well, you can easy see how it come out. When I see how it had been fixed, I changed my plans in a minute, an' wanted a late date fer the convention, but they proposed an early one, fer the thirtieth. An' on the test vote they beat us by just one. Well, Pusey had fixed it all up on the quiet. They sprung their early convention, an', though they hadn't any candidate, they beat the resolutions to instruct fer you, an' the delegation goes to the convention fer to support who it wants to."
"I thought it looked like one of his tricks. Has Moultrie held her convention?"
Garwood was silent for a long time. He drew a large cigar from his pocket and lighted it, rolling out its thick, rich Havana smoke until it was half consumed before he spoke again:
"Well, you've played hell, haven't you, Jim?"
"I'm awful sorry. I haven't slep' a night thinkin' of it, but--I couldn't help it, Pusey done it, that's all."
"Pusey!" sneered Garwood, putting all his contempt for the man into his tone as he sniffed out his name. "Pusey! To think of Jim Rankin's letting Free Pusey lick him that easy!"
"Well, we've al'ays underrated Pusey, I've found that out."
"Maybe. But he's slicker 'n I give him credit fer bein' an' I take off my hat to him, damn his dirty, lousy little soul!"
The two men sat after that, staring out the window, watching the lawyers coming out of the court house across the wide street, Garwood deep in gloom, wondering if he would have to resume that life with the rest of them. They looked so poor, their work so little and contemptible after all he had grown accustomed to in Washington. Rankin, however, could not long endure such a melancholy attitude and he roused his big body presently and said: