He spoke to Sam of the coming election; and Sam said: “Sure, I’m for you. Amos’s all right in Congress. But he’d make a mighty poor Mayor. I’m for you, Wint, m’boy. You’ve got nerve; and you’re funny, sometimes. Lord, but I’ve thought there was times when I’d die laughing at you. But you’re there, Wint. You can have me.”
He and Hetty went away together, and Wint watched them, forgetting what Sam had said in wondering about Sam and Hetty.
He got further comfort the next day from a man as close to Amos as Peter Gergue. Peter told him it looked as though Routt would win. “But there’s a pile that’ll vote for you,” he added. “It ain’t hurt you much, Amos quitting.” He looked all around furtively, and fumbled in his back hair, and said: “Amos didn’t do you such a bad turn, even if he meant to. I might give you a vote myself, Wint. I don’t know but I might.”
Wint laid plans for rallies on Friday and Saturday nights of the week before election. On Monday and Tuesday of that week, he worked all day, preparing the words he meant to say at those rallies. It was tough work; it was hard for him to put his own determination into words.
Tuesday night, the first of November, there came a diversion. Jim Radabaugh telephoned to him at midnight, summoning him out of bed. When Wint answered the ’phone, the marshal asked:
“That you, Wint?”
“Yes.”
“You r’member you told me to get after the bootleggers?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’ve done that little thing.”