"Why, it's a full day's journey and more, over the roughest and rockiest road in America," said Mr. Curtis, the state senator from Wyoming, who was still with them.
"I shall go," said Jimmy Grayson, decisively. "There is a break here in our schedule, and this trip will fit in very nicely."
The others were against it, but they said nothing more in opposition, knowing that it would be of no avail. Obliging, generous, and soft-hearted, the candidate, nevertheless, had a temper of steel when his mind was made up, and the others had learned not to oppose it. But all shunned the journey with him to Crow's Wing except Harley, Mr. Plummer, Mr. Herbert Heathcote—because there is no zeal like that of the converted—and one other.
That "other" was Sylvia, and she insisted upon going, refusing to listen to all the good arguments that were brought against it. "I know that I am only a woman—a girl," she said, "but I know, too, that I've lived all my life in the mountains, and I understand them. Why, I've been on harder journeys than this with daddy before I was twelve years old. Haven't I, daddy?" As she had predicted, she forgot his request not to call him "daddy."
Thus appealed to, Mr. Plummer was fain to confess the truth, though with reluctance. However, he said, rather weakly:
"But you don't know what kind of weather we'll have, Sylvia."
Then she turned upon him in a manner that terrified him.
"Now, daddy, if I couldn't get up a better argument than that I'd quit," she said. "Weather! weather! weather! to an Idaho girl! Suppose it should rain, I'm made of neither sugar nor salt, and I won't melt. I've been rained on a thousand times. Aunt Anna says I may go if Uncle James is willing, and he's willing—he has to be; besides, he's my chaperon. If you don't say 'yes,' Uncle James, I shall take the train and go straight home."
They were forced to consent, and Harley was glad that she insisted, because he liked to know that she was near, and he thought that she looked wonderfully well on horseback.
The going of Harley with the candidate was taken as a matter of course by everybody. Silent, tactful, and strong, he had grown almost imperceptibly into a confidential relationship with the nominee, and Mr. Grayson did not realize how much he relied upon the quiet man who could not make a speech but who was so ready of resource. As for Mr. Heathcote, being an Easterner, he wished to see the West in all its aspects.