The news editor suddenly lost all shyness, burst out laughing, leaned forward and shook hands.
"Don't know whether you know it or not," he went on, "but about a month ago one of those d—I beg your pardon, Miss MacDonald, Down-East scribblerettes, that come out to see the West from a Pullman car window and put things right, passed through here. Somebody got him and filled him up pretty full with a lot of lies about Wayland—"
"You mean Brydges gave him the facts?" asked Eleanor.
"Well, maybe, Brydges may have had him out in the forty horse power car! He sent a lot of awful rot East! That wasn't the worst of it. You'd think the Eastern fellows would know the difference between a maverick and a long-horn! He's been going round to the Eastern editors giving them doped stuff, lies dated out here written right down in New York! They've been hammering the Forest Service for the last month! I'll bet that dough-head never put a foot in National Forests once while he was West: rot about running off settlers, and shutting down mines, and hampering lumbering operations, and low down personal stuff! Anyway, between lies and dope, they've got Wayland! He's fired! I've been trying to get hold of him all day. Your old man's phrase, 'United States of the World,' kind of caught on with the crowd: they've kind of wakened up! Funny thing, the way that happens to a crowd! Your professional wind-jammer can orate till he busts his head, he never knows it has happened till the crowd has got away from him! Been a crush of men round Wayland all day, by G—, I beg your pardon—but if he isn't drowned, 'twon't be their fault! They are talking of putting him up as a candidate."
"As a what?" exclaimed Eleanor.
"Run for Congress," explained the news man.
She had gone quickly forward to the window, righting a shade to hide the flood of joy that surged up to her face.
"Excuse me—Mr.——? But I don't know your name?"
"My name? Oh, my name is—Legion," said the news editor dryly.
"Well, what was it you said the other day," she had mustered courage to turn and face him again, "what was it you said the other day about a moneyed man backing an independent paper through this fight? Don't you remember, after the inquest, Mr. Legion?"