Rankin did not, however, dutifully await the full expression of the thought.
"Concessions hell!" he cried. "Concessions to that little whelp? Well, I should say not! We'll lick him, an' then ram it down his throat!"
Rankin breathed heavily as he exploded this imperfect figure.
"We want to clean that little mess up right now, onct an' fer all," he added, when he could get breath again. He was puffing in a fat, angry way. "No, sir, you'n I'll take a run down to Havana, find Zeph Bailey, an' see if we can't sew up them eighteen votes from Mason. Then we'll hike up to Pekin an' attend Joe Hale's convention. Then on Saturday we'll drop into Lincoln, an' you'll make 'em a speech. I'll also make a few well chosen remarks myself--at the other end o' the hall. We'll concentrate on them counties. Course, it won't do no harm to make a try in DeWitt an' Piatt, but I don't look fer much there. We only need eighty-three votes; we've got ninety-four in sight--ef none of 'em gets away."
Rankin had a faculty of reassuring himself, and the faculty was somehow stimulated after the first pangs of defeat had been soothed.
"How sure is Tazewell?" Garwood inquired, still with his finger tips together, his eyes half closed in cogitation.
"Well, now, Joe Hale hain't a goin' to let that post-office get away from him. You can count on them thirty sure. Jim thinks Logan's all right--they like you over there, you know, an' Mac says Mason'll be solid. But we'll have to watch that. We may lose out there, but I don't think so--aw, hell, no!" Rankin refused to credit his own fears. "We'll get 'em. Damn it, we must get 'em!"
He struck his own knee this time, and with his fist.
This hasty calling of the convention was like a bomb-shell in the camp of the Sprague following, to use one of the war-like expressions that are trite in our sanguinary partisan politics. Pusey admitted as much when he wrote daily editorials denouncing the committee and what he called the snap judgment it had taken. The announcement, too, was not received with much favor in the other counties, for the time in which to call their county conventions was short, and the politicians were put to much trouble to form the combinations on which their own interests depended. But the four men who had met at Lincoln were a majority of the committee, and their action was conclusive. The other members, those from DeWitt, Piatt and Moultrie Counties had, like the rest, been notified by telegraph, and even by mail, but Rankin had taken care to send their telegrams at a late hour, knowing that the telegraph offices in the little towns were not open at night. Their letters of course reached them the next day--too late for them to get to the meeting.