"Larkin's come out for John Frankfort for the nomination for governor," said Burdick.
Scarborough smiled. "Even Larkin couldn't get it for Frankfort—he's too notorious."
"He don't want to get it for him," replied Burdick. "His real man's Judge Graney."
Scarborough stopped fanning himself with his wide-brimmed straw. Judge Graney was the most adroit and dangerous of John Dumont's tools. He had given invaluable aid from the bench at several of the National Woolens Company's most critical moments. Yet he had retained and increased his popularity and his reputation by deciding against his secret master with a brave show of virtue when he knew the higher courts must reverse him. For several years Scarborough had been looking forward to the inevitable open conflict between the forces of honesty in his party and the forces of the machine as ruled by the half-dozen big corporations who also ruled the machine of the opposition party. He had known that the contest must come, and that he must take part in it; and he had been getting ready. But he had not wished to give battle until he was strong enough to give a battle which, even if he lost it, would not strengthen the hold of the corruptionists.
After he rejected Larkin's dazzling offers, conditioned upon his aloofness rather than frank subservience, he had thought the whole situation over, and, as he hinted to Pauline, had realized how apparently hopeless a fight against the machine would be just then, with the people prosperous and therefore quiescent. And he had decided to stand aside for the time. He now saw that reluctance to attack Dumont had been at least a factor in this decision; and he also saw that he could not delay, as he had hoped. There was no escape—either he must let his work of years be undermined and destroyed or he must give battle with all his strength and skill. He remembered what Pauline had said: "You can't lose!"
"No, one can't lose in this sort of fight," he thought. "Either WE win or there'll be no victory." He sprang from the fence to the ground. "Let's go to the house," he said to Burdick.
"What you going to do?" asked Burdick, as they walked toward the gate, where his horse and buggy were hitched.
"Fight, of course," said Scarborough. "Fight Larkin and his gang in the open. I'll get ex-Governor Bowen to let us use his name and canvass the state for him."
Burdick shook his head sadly.
"It ain't politics," he said. "You'll split the party; then the party'll turn and split you." And later, as they were separating, Scarborough to drive to Saint X, Burdick to go back to Marshaltown, he said: "I'll help all I can in a quiet way. But—I hope you've got your cyclone cellar dug."