“Well, what did he do?”
“Do? Why, he didn’t do a thing but—well, I’ll tell it to you in its order. Everything seemed all right. We met at the Cassell House. There wasn’t many there at first, not enough to make a quorum. Then in walks old Sol Badger, an’ with him Lige Coons from Ball to’nship, an’ then who should follow but Pusey himself! Well, I didn’t think nothin’ of it then, fer I s’posed Pusey had come in as a representative of the press, you know, and o’ course, I didn’t feel like sayin’ an’thin’. Some o’ our fellers hadn’t got in yit, but when Es Miller arrived, up jumps Pusey an’ he says, ‘Well, we’ve got a quorum now, let’s get down to business.’ I looks at him a minute inquirin’ like, an’ he smiles back at me with that sof’ grin o’ his, like a cat, an’ he says, ‘I hold Mr. Golden’s proxy.’”
“Proxies!” exclaimed Garwood, “so that was it!”
“Yes sir, ev’ry one o’ them fellers had proxies, an’—well, you can easy see how it come out. When I see how it had been fixed, I changed my plans in a minute, an’ wanted a late date fer the convention, but they proposed an early one, fer the thirtieth. An’ on the test vote they beat us by just one. Well, Pusey had fixed it all up on the quiet. They sprung their early convention, an’, though they hadn’t any candidate, they beat the resolutions to instruct fer you, an’ the delegation goes to the convention fer to support who it wants to.”
“Whom will it support?”
“Well, Sprague, I reckon.”
“I thought it looked like one of his tricks. Has Moultrie held her convention?”
“No, they hold it next Saturday.”
Garwood was silent for a long time. He drew a large cigar from his pocket and lighted it, rolling out its thick, rich Havana smoke until it was half consumed before he spoke again:
“Well, you’ve played hell, haven’t you, Jim?”