“But that ain’t what I rose for. I’m going to name for the United States senate a clean man, one who doesn’t wear either the Harley or the Ridgway brand. He’s as straight as a string, not a crooked hair in his head, and every manjack of you knows it. I’m going to name a man”—he stopped an instant to smile genially around upon the circle of uplifted faces—“who isn’t any friend of either one faction or another, a man who has just had independence enough to quit a big job because it wasn’t on the square. That man’s name is Lyndon Hobart. If you want to do yourselves proud, gentlemen, you’ll certainly elect him.”
If it was a sensation he had wanted to create, he had it. The Warner forces were taken with dumb surprise. But many of them were already swiftly thinking it would be the best way out of a bad business. He would be conservative, as fair to the Consolidated as to the enemy. More, just now his election would appeal to the angry mob howling outside the building, for they could ask nothing more than the election of the man who had resigned rather than order the attack on the Taurus, which had resulted in the death of some of their number.
Hoyle, of the Democrats, seconded the nomination, as also did Eaton, in a speech wherein he defended the course of Ridgway and withdrew his name.
Within a few minutes of the time that Eaton sat down, the roll had been called and Hobart elected by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-four, the others refusing to cast a ballot.
The two young women, sitting together in the front row of the gallery, were glowing with triumphant happiness. Virginia was still clapping her hands when a voice behind her suggested that the circumstances did not warrant her being so happy over the result. She turned, to see Waring Ridgway smiling down at her.
“But I can’t help being pleased. Wasn’t Mr. Yesler magnificent?”
“Sam was all right, though he might have eased up a bit when he pitched into me.”
“He had to do that to be fair. Everybody knows you and he are friends. I think it was fine of him not to let that make any difference in his telling the truth.”
“Oh, I knew it would please you,” her betrothed laughed. “What do you say to going out to lunch with me? I’ll get Sam, too, if I can.”
The young women consulted eyes and agreed very readily. Both of them enjoyed being so near to the heart of things.