"Come to our meeting on the lawn at noon, Governor. We've bigger news than that for you."
"Bigger news?" the older man asked with a quizzical look.
"Yes. A message announcing the dawn of a day when every gun on earth shall be broken to pieces and melted into ploughshares."
The Colonel looked at Norman a moment, smiled, and slowly said:
"I love the young—because I live myself over again in them."
"Then you'll join us to-day?"
"Thanks—no—Elena and I are going to shoot firecrackers—but we won't disturb your crowd. Let them speak to their hearts' content."
The Colonel turned with Elena, and entered the house, which crowned an eminence overlooking the distant bay and city, while Norman hurried down the green sloping lawn to finish the decorations of the speakers' stand.
The crowd had already begun to pour in from Oakland and San Francisco, and more than a hundred delegates from Socialist locals in other cities were expected.
On a little headland which jutted out from the long sloping mountain side on which the lawn was laid out, Colonel Worth had erected a tall steel flag-pole. The big flag which flew from its peak could be seen by every ship that entered or left the bay and for miles on shore in almost every direction.