As the door closed, Craig bent a long look upon the man who stood there. "Don't be a fool," he said. "Put that thing down. I'm not going to hurt you. I want to ask you some questions."
Paddy the Brick laid the ruler down, but he kept the table between them.
"Did you know who the man was who broke into my house with you--the one who was caught?"
The other looked at him cunningly. "The one you swore shot you?"
Craig's fingers twitched. "Yes," he said, after a pause.
Paddy the Brick stared. "Good Lord! _He_ wasn't one of us. He just happened in for a social call!" He leaned across the table. "Say," he whispered, "what did you want to hang him for?"
There was in the posture, the whisper, an inexpressible assumption of identity of interest which stung and galled the man who faced him. The blood welled into Craig's face, then very slowly ebbed.
"Would you know him again, if he had changed his appearance? If, for instance, he wore a beard?"
"Know him!" Paddy the Brick jerked his thumb toward the window. "Why, we was mates over there."
Craig looked at him steadily for a moment without speaking. Then he pointed to a chair.
At midnight that night the home city of Harry Sevier was ablaze with lights and throbbing with the last feverish activity of a strenuous campaign. The candidate of the new party had returned that afternoon from a tour of the southern portion of the state, and plenteous bunting, everywhere displayed, testified to an enthusiasm that, carefully fostered by his lieutenants, had permeated every section and class. That evening, to ring down the curtain with a brilliant _finale_, a torchlight procession had been organised. Ten thousand strong, the blazing flambeaux had marched and countermarched along the city's main thoroughfares, and Harry had reviewed them from the balcony of the hotel which was the party's _rendezvous_.
He had flung himself into the fight with every ounce of his splendid vitality which had been deepened and strengthened by the months of mountain solitude. There was infinitely more at issue now than he had dreamed when he canvassed chances at the bungalow. The cause of the new party had then seemed inevitably a losing one. But during that long campaign--particularly in the last few weeks--it had been borne in upon him that the time had been ripe for the venture. Long arrogance and effrontery had borne their legitimate fruit in a profound resentment that had been fanned to vivid life by the quickening breath. There had been an erasure of old lines, and at length the party in power, aroused and desperate, had found itself fighting for its life. There were no odds offered that day on its victory! Once committed, however, there had been no turning back possible. Harry's bridges had been burned behind him. He could only go forward, and, fighting on, he had striven to thrust his problem, with its increasing implications, into the background of his mind. And in spite of himself the zest of victory had absorbed him. To-night's parade had been an inspiring spectacle and it had called from him the last speech of the campaign.