"I may also say," went on Hall, "that I believe this thirty thousand dollars (if there is such a sum of money in the envelope which Senator Blair has just placed on the desk) was put up for the purpose of stampeding the Assembly for this man who professes to be so honest and so upright—Senator Danvers!"
Hisses came from all over the room, but Hall was impervious.
"Mr. President: I hereby make my protest against such spectacular performances by casting my vote, altogether uninfluenced, for the Honorable Robert Burroughs," he gave a quick glance to the rear of the room where a new group had just crowded in, "and I defy anyone to detect 'a blush of shame' on my brow."
The speech and the bravado fell flat. The crowd was not with this bribe-taker. The voting proceeded, and Danvers' name was spoken with gusto by many who thought, on the next ballot, to return to their respective candidates.
"Philip Danvers!" yelled Representative O'Dwyer, hardly waiting for his name as the representatives were called. "Danvers! Danvers! Danvers!" he repeated, in a frenzy of friendly fervor. Pounding feet and canes accentuated the Irishman's cry.
"You've given him the deciding vote, O'Dwyer!" shouted the doctor, forgetting decorum in the delirium of the moment. He had kept close check on the various candidates while the angry Moore and Burroughs, purple and speechless, stood aghast, not believing that this flurry could abolish the results of their expensive campaign.
"Philip Danvers it is!" yelled O'Dwyer, overjoyed, leaping to the top of his desk and jumping madly. "Danvers forever! Hooray!"
"Danvers! Danvers! Danvers!" The name was taken up as a slogan by the cheering legislators and citizens—men and women alike. Shouts and hisses, congratulations and curses, laughter and consternation mingled over this unexpected denouement of the long-drawn-out contest.
The speaker's gavel came near to breaking, and the desk was cracked before the tumult could be quieted sufficiently to proceed with the balloting.
The remaining numbers, almost to a man, voted for Danvers; and when O'Dwyer moved that the vote be made unanimous, the noise and enthusiasm which had preceded was as silence to what followed when the motion was put, seconded and carried, that Philip Danvers of Fort Benton be declared unanimously elected as the United States senator from Montana to fill the vacancy for the four years beginning March four, eighteen hundred and ninety——.