"The indications are that the State will go against us."
"And why so?"
"Because we have not been able to send speakers there, and the Plutocrats wrecked the train which was conveying the biograph pictures. You know the Press of the slope, with but few exceptions, are owned by the Magnates and suppress every bit of news that would be detrimental to them. They have distorted the acts of the Committee of Forty. Out in California the great mass of the people look upon the Independents as a party of Anarchists."
"Trueman can be elected without California, can he not?"
"Elected! Why, he will carry forty States."
"You really believe it?" asks Nevins, earnestly.
"I would wager my life on it," is the instant reply.
Nevins hurries from the headquarters and goes to his room. He writes a letter to Trueman, setting forth his hopes that the interests of the people will ever remain Trueman's actuating principle. With absolute fidelity he tells of the struggle he has undergone since the day he sent Golding to his death, and his reason for procrastinating in ending his life.
When the letter is finished Nevins reads it with evident satisfaction.
"Now I will go to the committee," is his resolve.