“Me? I’m no orator.”
“None needed. You can talk straight, can’t you? Call a lie a lie?”
“I reckon. But it’s a game I don’t savvy, Senator. If I was going gunnin’ for statesmen I’d never snap a cap at Hugh McClintock.”
“Just hit out hard from the shoulder. Talk right out for Scot as though you were with two or three friends. Carry the war into the enemy’s camp. Show how they’ve stacked the cards against your brother.”
McClintock’s eyes blazed. “I’ll do it, Senator. I’ll give Scot a run for his white alley yet.”
He did. To every camp and town in the state he fared forth and told the story. He told it at mine shafts, in saloons, around hotel stoves, and in public meetings called for that purpose. Much to his surprise he developed a capacity for public speaking. His strength lay in the direct, forceful simplicity of what he said. He was so manifestly a sincere and honest champion that men accepted at face value what he said.
At one town Captain Palmer, who had organized the Aurora vigilance committee, introduced him in characteristic fashion.
“You see the big head on his broad shoulders. It’s up to you to decide whether there’s anything in it,” he said bluntly.
Hugh plunged straight at his subject.
“I’m here to speak for a man who lies at Carson wounded by three bullets from the revolvers of two murderers. I’m here to answer the whispers set going by the men who profit most by that attempted assassination, men who would never have the courage to say any of these things face to face with Colonel McClintock.”