"I knew you wouldn't want to miss it," said the youth, "I come on late, you know, and, besides, I remembered that the difference in time between here and New York is against us."
Mr. Moore, the father, was on the train throughout the day, but he did not speak to his son. He spent his time in the car in which Jimmy Grayson sat, always silent, but always looking, with appeal and pathos, at the great leader. His eyes said plainly: "Mr. Grayson, you will not fail me, will you? You will save my son? You will beat him, and tread on him until he hasn't left a single thought of being a famous orator and public leader? Then he will return to the work for which God made him."
Harley would look at the old man awhile, and then return to the next car, where the youth was chattering away to those who could not escape him.
The speech in Pueblo was to be of the utmost importance, not alone to those whose own ears would hear it, but to the whole Union, because the candidate would make a plain declaration upon a number of vexed questions that had been raised within the last week or two. This had been announced in all the press on the authority of Jimmy Grayson himself, and the speech in full, not a word missing, would have to be telegraphed to all the great newspapers both East and West.
In such important campaigns as that of a Presidential nominee, the two great telegraph companies always send operators with the correspondents, in order that they may despatch long messages from small way-stations, where the local men are not used to such heavy work. Now Harley and his associates had with them two veterans, Barr and Wymond, from Chicago, who never failed them. They were relieved, too, on reaching Pueblo, to find that the committee in charge had been most considerate. Some forethoughtful man, whom the correspondents blessed, had remembered the three hours' difference in time between Pueblo and New York, and against New York, and he had run two wires directly into the hall and into a private box on the left, where Barr and Wymond could work the instruments, so far from the stage that the clicking would not disturb Jimmy Grayson or anybody else, but would save much time for the correspondents.
The audience gathered early, and it was a splendid Western crowd, big-boned and tanned by the Western winds.
"They have cranks out here, but it's a land of strong men, don't you forget that," said Harley to Churchill, and Churchill did not attempt a sarcastic reply.
They were both sitting at the edge of the stage, and in front of them, nearer the footlights, was young Moore, proud and eager, his fingers moving nervously. His father, too, had found a seat on the stage, but he was in the background, next to the scenery and behind the others; he was not visible from the floor of the house. There he sat, staring gloomily at his son, and now and then, with a sort of despairing hope, glancing at Jimmy Grayson.
There were some short preliminary speeches and introductions, and then came the turn of the candidate. The usual flutter of expectation ran over the audience, followed by the usual deep hush, but just at that moment there was an interruption. A boy in the uniform of a telegraph company hurried upon the stage.
"You must come at once, sir," he said to Harley. "Mr. Wymond hasn't turned up. We don't know what's become of him. And Mr. Barr has took sick, sudden and bad. The Pueblo manager says he'll get somebody here as quick as he can, but he can't do it under half an hour, anyway!"