VII
RANKIN’S announcement was a simple one, and was made without flourish. It was merely that at a meeting of the congressional committee held the day before at Lincoln, a congressional convention had been called to assemble at Pekin, on Tuesday of the following week. The announcement was a surprise to none more than to Garwood himself. It reached him in the mysterious way that news spreads, on his way down town Monday morning, and, when it was mentioned to him he smiled blandly with his old cunning as if he had known it all along. He hastened to his office, and waited there half an hour before Rankin appeared, perspiring, florid and expanding with self-satisfaction.
“Well,” he said, standing an instant in the doorway and fanning his streaming face with his hat, “think you’d lost me?”
Garwood, not having had time to estimate the political effect of the move Rankin had made, and somewhat annoyed with Rankin for not having told him of his intentions before executing them, took refuge in the congressional demeanor he had studied from numerous impressive models in the District of Columbia.
“I have been awaiting a conference with you,” he said. He had also learned at Washington to call meetings where there was to be political scheming, “conferences.”
“Well,” said Rankin, dropping his wide hat to the floor, “I thought I’d see if it could be done first, and tell you afterwards.”
“So I assumed.”
Rankin glanced at Garwood somewhat uneasily. He did not like the new mood of Garwood.
“Oh, it’s all right,” he assured him, “wait till I tell you. I knew that Sprague and Pusey were at work, but they needed time. Our play was to force their hand at once. What we want is a speedy convention so—what?”
“I said I was not so sure of that,” Garwood repeated.
“Well, I say yes,” said Rankin. “Man alive! They’ll skin us; give ’em time. Anyway Friday night I wired Sam McKimmon and Jim O’Malley and Joe Hale to meet me Saturday at Lincoln. I went over and there they were. I told ’em where we was at, an’ what Sprague ’as doin’. They agreed ’ith me that we’d ought to get a move on, an’ we decided quick—convention fer a week from to-morrow at Pekin—Joe insisted on that. I wired Heffron an’ Schmidt an’ Carman las’ night. It’s fixed now. What do you think of it?”
“Well, I don’t know; if I had had—”
“Well, you’ll say it’s the thing when I show you this. Look’e here.” He drew a crumpled telegram from his pocket, struck it open with the back of his fingers, and handed it to Garwood. “Look at that!”
Garwood read it. It was a telegram from George Schmidt, the committee-man from Moultrie County, voicing an indignant protest.
“It’s all right, I reckon. Heh?” Rankin smiled triumphantly. “Maybe ol’ Con hain’t mad!”
For the first time Garwood was reassured. If Sprague was mad, it must be all right, proceeding on the common assumption that anything which harasses the enemy is a point gained.
“I don’t know but you’re right,” he said, relentingly.
“Ain’t I?” said Rankin, smiling more complacently and triumphantly than ever. “Reckon they won’t ketch your Uncle James nappin’ more’n onct, even if the weather is hot.”
And as if he had just reminded himself of the heat he stripped off his coat, hung it over the back of his chair and pulled his shirt sleeves far up his hairy arms for greater comfort.
“Why did you select Pekin?” Garwood asked, presently.
“’Cause it’s fartherest from Sullivan fer one thing, an’ then Joe Hale wanted to get it fer his home town. He was a little skeery at first. I had to fix him—promised him you’d have him appointed postmaster. You’ll have to do it.” Garwood scowled the scowl that comes when the vexed question of patronage is mooted, but said:
“I’ll take care of him.”
“Yes,” Rankin went on, “you’ll have to. He says he can land a delegation from Tazewell all right. Their county convention’s Thursday. There’s thirty votes to start on. O’Malley says Logan’s all right, too. They’ll have a mass convention called fer Saturday. That’ll be twenty-four more—fifty-four.” Rankin leaned over to Garwood’s desk and began to make figures on an old envelope. “Fifty-four,” he repeated. “Mac thinks he can fetch up his county; that’s eighteen more—seventy-two in all. With our twenty-two here that’ll make—le’s see, two’n’ two’s four—seven an’ two’s nine—ninety-four. An’ you’re nominated, ol’ man.”
And Rankin, dropping his pencil, slapped Garwood on the knee, though an instant later he regretted having taken what once would not have been a liberty, for he had a sudden intuition that a new divinity now hedged his congressman. But he speedily covered his slight confusion by proceeding:
“An’ now we’ve only got a week to get ready in, but a week’s as good as a month. We must cinch the thing in Tazewell an’ Logan an’ Mason. That end o’ the district’s our’s naturally. We’ll give ’em Piatt an’ DeWitt; an’ Moultrie—course they’ve got that coopered up already.”
Garwood placed the tips of his fingers together and knitted his brows in thought. Rankin dutifully awaited the result of his thinking.
“Don’t you think,” the congressman said presently, “that we could gain a few more votes here in Polk? Perhaps, with certain concessions, Pusey might—”
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.
And so over the district, the preparations for the county conventions went forward. Rankin and Garwood made their trip, and made their speeches, and when they came home Rankin claimed solid delegations from Logan, Mason and Tazewell. The delegation from Tazewell was instructed for Garwood; those from Logan and Mason were not. Rankin also claimed votes in the DeWitt and Piatt delegations, and formulated such an elaborate equation that he was able to demonstrate to any one that Garwood would be nominated on the first ballot, and with votes to spare.
Pusey made no claims in his newspaper. He was ever shrewd enough and shifty enough not to do anything openly that could stultify him in the future, but Rankin said that telegrams were constantly passing between him and Sprague. Garwood did not have his interview with the little editor. He had thought of it, and had even broached the subject to Rankin again, but Rankin was implacable in his hatred and vigorously opposed any such movement. In the strenuous fight that was coming on, and even then begun, he displayed again all of his old commanding resolution, and Garwood fell under the spell of his strong will.
“They’ll find Jim Rankin a pretty active corpse!” he was continually saying to Garwood.
So the week passed, the county conventions were all held, and then a silence brooded over the political camps in the district as the delegations, like the mobilized detachments of an army, waited for the time to come when they should move on Pekin and begin the great battle.