"Have you fellows thought that this is our last meeting?" he asked.
There was a sudden silence in the room. All seemed to feel the solemnity of the moment. Out in the street some happy men, who had helped to empty the bowl, were singing a campaign song, and its sound came faintly to the group.
"A wager to you boys that none of you can name the state from which the first completed return will come. What odds will you give?" said "King" Plummer, who was resolutely seeking to be cheerful.
"We won't take your wager because we'd win, sure," said Hobart. "It will be a precinct in New York City, up-town. They get through quick there; they never fail to be first."
"Whatever the vote there is, I am going to look upon it as an omen," said Mr. Heathcote. "If our majority is reduced it will mean a bad start, good ending; if our majority is increased, it will mean that a good beginning is half the battle."
Dexter, the chairman of the state campaign committee, entered, his thin face still shadowed by gloomy thoughts.
"We've had a few bulletins at headquarters, but nothing definite," he said. "All the reports so far are from the East, of course, owing to the difference in time, but I'd like mighty well to know what they are doing out there on the Slope and in the Rockies."
"We'll know in good time, Charlie; just you wait," said Jimmy Grayson, who was the calmest man in the room.
"I've done enough waiting already to last me the rest of my life," said Dexter, moodily.
The door was opened softly, and four or five pairs of young eyes peeped shyly into the room. The candidate, with assurances that there was nothing to be told, gently pushed the youthful figures away and closed the door again.