“I think, major, that you and me are about to be notified that our fellow citizens have returned us onc't more to private pursoots,” said the old judge, and there was a game smile on his face. For, so far back that he hated to remember how long it was, he had had his office—holding it as a trust of honor. He was too old actively to reënter the practice of law, and he had saved mighty little out of his salary as judge. He would be an idle man and a poor one—perhaps actually needy; and the look out of his eyes by no means matched the smile on his face.
“I can't seem to understand it,” said the major, crushed. “Always before, the old boys could be depended upon to turn out for us.”
“Major,” said Judge Priest, letting his wrinkled old hand fall on the major's sound leg, “did you ever stop to think that there ain't so many of the old boys left any more? There used to be a hundred and seventy-five members of the camp in good standin'. How many are there now? And how many of the boys did we bury this past year?”
There was a yell from up front and a scrooging forward of bodies.
Editor Tompkins was calling off something. The returns from Clark's River and from Lang's Store had arrived together. He read out the figures. These two old men, sitting side by side, at the back, listened with hands cupped behind ears that were growing a bit faulty of hearing. They heard.
Major J. Q. A. Pickett got up very painfully and very slowly. He hooked his cane up under him and limped out unnoticed. That was the night when the major established his right of squatter sovereignty over that one particular spot at the far end of Billy Sherrill's bar-rail.
Thus deserted, the judge sat alone for a minute. The bowl of his corncob pipe had lost its spark of life and he sucked absently at the cold, bitterish stem. Then he, too, got on his feet and made his way round the end of a cluttered-up writing desk into the middle of the room. It took an effort, but he bore himself proudly erect.
“Henry,” he called out to the editor, in his homely whine—“Henry, would you mind tellin' me—jest for curiosity—how my race stands?”
“Judge,” said the editor, “by the latest count you are forty-eight votes behind Mr. Prentiss.”
“And how many more precincts are there to hear from, my son?”