"No," Carley answered in every case. "If you get it into your head that Boyd Westover is afraid of anything or anybody, you'll be as badly mistaken as if you'd burnt your boots. He's away on a hunting and fishing expedition, just now, and he knows nothing of his nomination. When we notify him of it he'll be here to face anything or anybody, and in the meanwhile there are some others of us who are prepared to do any 'facing' that may be necessary."
This last utterance was intended to check unfavorable references to Boyd Westover's unfortunate experience, and it was in the main effective. For Carley Farnsworth, small as he was, had a reputation as a fighting force of no mean pretensions. Three times he had met antagonists on the duelling field. On one of those occasions he had seriously wounded his foe, and then had tenderly cared for him, nursing him back to health in his own house. On the two other occasions his antagonists had apologized. In still another case Carley had shown a loftier courage. After accepting a challenge he had said to his seconds:
"I am satisfied that I'm in the wrong in this matter. I was entirely sincere in making the charge for which I am challenged, but I made it upon misinformation, and I am prepared to withdraw and apologize for it. Communicate that decision to my antagonist. If he still wants a shot at me, he can have it of course."
Such was Carley Farnsworth, and in view of the veiled warning his words gave, it was felt that an extreme discretion in discussing matters pertaining to Westover's candidacy was, to say the least, desirable.
Yet Webb and his friends felt that something must be done to stem the tide created by the Westover nomination. The names appended to it were those of such men that their support of any candidacy in opposition, seriously imperilled Webb's chance of election, which until then had been regarded as a foregone conclusion that needed no looking after.
"Something must be done," and the fact that Colonel Conway's signature was conspicuously absent from the nomination paper, suggested the nature of that "something." It was known that The Oaks and Wanalah were adjoining plantations; that the Conways and the Westovers had been the closest intimates for generations; that Colonel Conway had wearied all ears with his eulogiums of Westover's gallantry in rescuing his daughter in time of peril. Why then was Colonel Conway's name absent from a list that it should naturally have headed? Was it that he believed in Westover's guilt in spite of the revealed facts, as some others professed to do? Or was there truth in the rumor, which was vaguely floating about, that Westover had jilted Colonel Conway's daughter?
That last suggestion was quickly negatived in all well ordered minds by the certain knowledge that if Westover or any other man on earth had been guilty of such offence toward a daughter of the house of Conway, the head of that house would have horse-whipped the offender in public and at the point of a pistol.
Nevertheless there remained the fact that Colonel Conway's name did not appear among those nominating Boyd Westover, and that fact greatly encouraged Webb and his adherents when they found that they must fight tooth and nail for an election which they had deemed secure beyond the necessity of endeavor of any sort. They set to work, not so much to find out the reason for Colonel Conway's refusal of his name, as to insinuate conjectural solutions of that riddle that might be hurtfully whispered into doubting ears.
"There must be something wrong in that quarter."
"It isn't easy to explain."