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The Ramrodders by Holman Day

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THE RAMRODDERS

BY HOLMAN DAY

AUTHOR OF KING SPRUCE, ETC.

1910




CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION

II. THE LINE-UP OF THE FIGHT

III. DENNIS KAVANAGH'S GIRL

IV. THE DUKE AT BAY

V. A CAUCUS, AS IT WAS PLANNED

VI. A CAUCUS, AND HOW IT WAS RUN

VII. WITH THE KAVANAGH AT HOME

VIII. THE MANTLE OF THELISMER THORNTON

IX. IN THE CENTRE OF THE BIG STATE WEB

X. A POLITICAL CONVERT

XI. A MAN FROM THE SHADOWS

XII. DEALS AND IDEALS

XIII. THE DUKE'S DOUBLE CAMPAIGN

XIV. THE BEES AND THE WOULD-BES

XV. SITTING IN FOR THE DEAL

XVI. THE HANDS ARE DEALT

XVII. THE ODD TRICK

XVIII. THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP

XIX. THE RAMRODDERS RAMPANT

XX. A GIRL'S HEART

XXI. STARTING A MULE TEAM

XXII. FROM THE MOUTH OF A MAID

XXIII. A TRUCE

XXIV. A GOVERNOR AND A MAID

XXV. WOMEN, AND ONE WOMAN

XXVI. THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAID

XXVII. THE EVERLASTING PROBLEM

XXVIII. ONE PROBLEM SOLVED




THE RAMRODDERS




CHAPTER I

THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION


War and Peace had swapped corners that morning in the village of Fort
Canibas. War was muttering at the end where two meeting-houses placidly
faced each other across the street. Peace brooded over the ancient
blockhouse, relic of the "Bloodless War," and upon the structure that
Thelismer Thornton had converted from officers' barracks to his own uses
as a dwelling.

At dawn a telegraph messenger jangled the bell in the dim hall of "The
Barracks." It was an urgent cry from the chairman of the Republican
State Committee. It announced his coming, and warned the autocrat of the
North Country of the plot. The chairman knew. The plotters had been
betrayed to him, and from his distance he enjoyed a perspective which is
helpful in making political estimates. But Thelismer Thornton only
chuckled over Luke Presson's fears. He went back to bed for another nap.

When he came down and ate breakfast alone in the big mess-room, which he
had not allowed the carpenters to narrow by an inch, he was still amused
by the chairman's panic. As a politician older than any of them, a man
who had served his district fifty years in the legislature, he refused
to believe--intrenched there in his fortress in the north--that there
was danger abroad in the State.

"Reformers, eh?" He sneered the word aloud in the big room of echoes.
"Well, I can show them one up here. There's Ivus Niles!"

And at that moment Ivus Niles was marching into the village from the Jo
Quacca hills, torch for the tinder that had been prepared. It is said
that a cow kicked over a lantern that started the conflagration of its
generation. In times when political tinder is dry there have been great
men who have underestimated reform torches.

It was a bland June morning. The Hon. Thelismer Thornton was bland, too,
in agreement with the weather. A good politician always agrees with what
cannot be helped.

He stood in the door of "The Barracks" and gazed out upon the rolling
St. John hills--a lofty, ponderous hulk of a man, thatched with white
hair, his big, round face cherubic still in spite of its wrinkles. He
lighted a cigar, and gazed up into the cloudless sky with the mental
endorsement that it was good caucus weather. Then he trudged out across
the grass-plot and climbed into his favorite seat. It was an arm-chair
set high in the tangle of the roots of an overturned spruce-tree. The
politicians of the county called that seat "The Throne," and for a
quarter of a century the Hon. Thelismer Thornton had been nicknamed "The
Duke of Fort Canibas." Add that the nicknames were not ill bestowed.
Such was the Hon. Thelismer Thornton.

He had brought newspapers in his pockets. He set his eyeglasses on his
bulging nose, and began to read.

In the highway below him teams went jogging into the village. There
were fuzzy Canadian horses pulling buckboards sagging under the weight
of all the men who could cling on. There were top carriages and even a
hayrack well loaded with men.

Occasionally the old man lifted his gaze from his reading and eyed the
dusty wayfarers benignantly. He liked to know that the boys were turning
out to the caucus. His perch was a lofty one. He could see that the one
long street of Fort Canibas was well gridironed with teams--horses
munching at hitching-posts, wagons thrusting their tails into the
roadway.

It was quiet at Thornton's end of the village. There was merely twitter
of birds in the silver poplar that shaded his seat, busy chatter of
swallows, who were plastering up their mud nests under the eaves of the
old blockhouse across the road from him. It was so quiet that he could
hear a tumult at the other end of the village; it _was_ a tumult for
calm Fort Canibas. A raucous voice bellowed oratory of some sort, and
yells and laughter and cheers punctuated the speech. Thornton knew the
voice, even at that distance, for the voice of "War Eagle" Niles. He
grinned, reading his paper. The sound of that voice salted the article
that he was skimming:

"--and the fight is beginning early this year. The reform leaders say
they find the sentiment of the people to be with them, and so the
reformers propose to do their effective work at the caucuses instead of
waiting to lock horns with a legislature and lobby controlled by the old
politicians of the State. There is a contest on even in that impregnable
fortress of the old regime, the 'Duchy of Canibas.' It is said that the
whole strength of the State reform movement is quietly behind the attempt
to destroy Thelismer Thornton's control in the north country. His is one
of the earliest caucuses, and the moral effect of the defeat of that
ancient autocrat will be incalculable."

Still more broadly did Thornton smile. "War Eagle" Niles, down there,
was a reformer. For forty years he had been bellowing against despots
and existing order, and, for the Duke of Fort Canibas, he typified
"Reform!" Visionary, windy, snarling, impracticable attempts to smash
the machine!

Therefore, in his serene confidence--the confidence of an old man who
has founded and knows the solidity of the foundations--Thelismer
Thornton smoked peacefully at one end of the village of Fort Canibas,
and allowed rebellion to roar at its pleasure in the other end.

Then he saw them coming, heard the growing murmur of many voices, the
cackle of occasional laughter, and took especial note of "War Eagle"
Ivus Niles, who led the parade. A fuzzy and ancient silk hat topped his
head, a rusty frock-coat flapped about his legs, and he tugged along at
the end of a cord a dirty buck sheep. A big crowd followed; but when
they shuffled into the yard of "The Barracks" most of the men were
grinning, as though they had come merely to look on at a show. The old
man in his aureole of roots gazed at them with composure, and noted no
hostility.

Niles and his buck sheep stood forth alone. The others were grouped in a
half circle. Even upon the "War Eagle," Thornton gazed tolerantly. There
was the glint of fun in his eyes when Niles formally removed his silk
hat, balanced it, crown up, in the hook of his elbow, and prepared to
deliver his message.

"The dynasty of the house of Thornton must end to-day!" boomed Niles, in
his best orotund.

Thornton found eyes in the crowd that blinked appreciation. Quizzical
wrinkles deepened in his broad face. He plucked a cigar from his
waistcoat-pocket and held it down toward Mr. Niles.

"No, sir!" roared that irreconcilable. "I ain't holding out my porringer
to Power--never again!"

"Power," repulsed, lighted the cigar from the one he was smoking, and
snapped the butt at the sheep.

"I'm a lover of good oratory, Ivus," he said, placidly, "and I know
you've come here loaded. Fire!" He clasped his upcocked knee with his
big hands, fingers interlaced, and leaned back.

The crowd exchanged elbow-thrusts and winks. But the ripple of laughter
behind did not take the edge off Mr. Niles's earnestness.

"Honorable Thornton, I do not mind your sneers and slurs. When I see my
duty I go for it. I'm here before you to-day as Protest walking erect,
man-fashion, on two legs, and with a visible emblem that talks plainer
than words can talk. The people need visible emblems to remind them.
Like I'm leading this sheep, so you have been leading the voters of this
legislative district. The ring has been in here"--Mr. Niles savagely
pinched the cartilage of his nose--"and you have held the end of the
cord. That's the way you've been led, you people!" The orator whirled
and included his concourse of listeners as objects of arraignment.
"Here's the picture of you as voters right before your eyes. Do you
propose to be sheep any longer?" He put his hat on his head, and shook a
hairy fist at the Duke of Fort Canibas. "This ain't a dynasty, and you
can't make it into one. I call on you to take note of the signs and act
accordingly; for the people are awake and arming for the fray. And when
the people are once awake they can't any more be bamboozled by a
political despot than the war eagle, screaming across the blue dome of
the everlasting heavens, will turn tail when he hears the twittering of
a pewee!" Mr. Niles closed, as he always closed a speech, with the
metaphor that had given him his sobriquet.

"That is real oratory, Ivus," stated Mr. Thornton, serenely; "I know it
is, because a man who is listening to real oratory never understands
what the orator is driving at."

The Hon. Thelismer Thornton usually spoke with a slow, dry,
half-quizzical drawl. That drawl was effective now. He came down from
his chair, carefully stepping on the roots, and loomed above Mr. Niles,
amiable, tolerant, serene. His wrinkled crash suit, in whose ample folds
his mighty frame bulked, contrasted oddly with the dusty, rusty black in
which Mr. Niles defied the heat of the summer day.

"Now I am down where I can talk business, Ivus. What's the matter with
you?"

"Look into the depths of your own soul, if you've got the moral eyesight
to look through mud," declaimed Mr. Niles, refusing to descend from
polemics to plain business, "and you'll see what is the matter. You have
made yourself the voice by which this district has spoken in the halls
of state for fifty years, and that voice is not the voice of the
people!" He stood on tiptoe and roared the charge.

"It is certainly not your voice that I take down to the State House with
me," broke in their representative. "Freight charges on it would more
than eat up my mileage allowance. Now let's call off this bass-drum solo
business. Pull down your kite. To business!" He snapped his fingers
under Mr. Niles's nose.

One of those in the throng who had not smiled stepped forth and spoke
before the disconcerted "War Eagle" had recovered his voice.

"Since I am no orator, perhaps I can talk business to you,
Representative Thornton." He was a grave, repressed, earnest man, whose
sunburned face, bowed shoulders, work-stained hands, and general air
proclaimed the farmer. "We've come here on a matter of business, sir."

"Led by a buck sheep and a human windmill, eh?"

"Mr. Niles's notions of tactics are his own. I'm sorry to see him handle
this thing as he has. It was coming up in the caucus this afternoon in
the right way." Thornton was listening with interest, and the man went
on with the boldness the humble often display after long and earnest
pondering has made duty plain. "When I saw Niles pass through the street
and the crowd following, I was afraid that a matter that's very serious
to some of us would be turned into horseplay, and so I came along, too.
But I am not led by a buck sheep, Mr. Thornton, nor are those who
believe with me."

"Believe what?"

"That, after fifty years of honors at our hands, you should be willing
to step aside."

The Hon. Thelismer Thornton dragged up his huge figure into the
stiffness of resentment. He ran searching eyes over the faces before
him. All were grave now, for the sounding of the first note of revolt in
a half century makes for gravity. The Duke of Fort Canibas could not
distinguish adherents from foes at that moment, when all faces were
masked with deep attention. His eyes came back to the stubborn
spokesman.

"Walt Davis," he said, "your grandfather put my name before the caucus
that nominated me for the legislature fifty years ago, and your father
and you have voted for me ever since. You and every other voter in this
district know that I do not intend to run again. I have announced it.
What do you mean, then, by coming here in this fashion?"

"You have given out that you are going to make your grandson our next
representative."

"And this ain't a dynasty!" roared Mr. Niles.

"Is there anything the matter with my grandson?" But Davis did not
retreat before the bent brows of the district god.

"The trouble with him is, that he's your grandson."

"And what fault do you find with me after all these years?" There was
wrathful wonderment in the tone.

"If you're going to retire from office," returned Mr. Davis, doggedly,
"there's no need of raking the thing over to make trouble and hard
feelings. I've voted for you, like my folks did before me. You're
welcome to all those votes, Representative Thornton, but neither you nor
your grandson is going to get any more. And as I say, so say many others
in this district."

"No crowned heads, no rings in the noses of the people," declared Niles,
yanking the cord and producing a bleat of fury from his emblematic
captive.

"I don't stand for Niles and his monkey business," protested Davis. "I'm
on a different platform. All is, we propose to be represented from now
on; not _mis_-represented!"

Something like stupefaction succeeded the anger in the countenance of
the Duke of Fort Canibas. Again he made careful scrutiny of the faces of
his constituents. Then he turned his back on them and climbed up the
twisted roots to his chair, sat down, faced them, caught his breath, and
ejaculated, "Well, I'll be eternally d----d!"

He studied their faces for some time. But he was too good a politician
to put much value on those human documents upraised to him. There were
grins, subtle or humorous. There were a few scowls. One or two,
tittering while they did it, urged the "War Eagle" on to fresh tirade.
It was a mob that hardly knew its own mind, that was plain. But revolt
was there. He felt it. It was one of those queer rebellions, starting
with a joke for an excuse, but ready to settle into something serious.
It was not so much hostility that he saw at that moment as something
more dangerous--lack of respect.

"Look here, boys, I've been hearing that some of those cheap suckers
from down State have been sneaking around this district. But I've never
insulted you by believing you took any stock in that kind of cattle.
We're neighbors here together. What's the matter with me? Out with your
real grouch!"

"Look at this emblem I've brought," began Niles, oracularly, but
Thornton was no longer in the mood that humored cranks. He jumped down,
yanked the cord away from Niles, kicked the sheep and sent it scampering
off with frightened bleats.

"If you fellows want an emblem, there's one," declared their indignant
leader. "I'm all right for a joke--but the joke has got to stop when it
has gone far enough."

He had sobered them. His disgusted glance swept their faces, and grins
were gone. He went among them.

"Get around me, boys," he invited. "This isn't any stump speech. I'm
going to talk business."

They did crowd around him, most of them, but Mr. Niles was still
intractable. "You're right, it was your emblem just now! It has always
been a kick from you and the rest of the high and mighty ones when you
didn't want our wool."

"You're an infernal old liar and meddler, torched on by some one else!"
retorted the Duke. "Now, boys, I see into this thing better than you do.
Any time when I haven't used my district right, when I've betrayed you,
or my word of advice isn't worth anything, I'll step out--and it won't
need any bee of this kind to come around and serve notice on me. But I
understand just what this shivaree means. Sneaks have come in here and
lied behind my back and fooled some of you. Fools need to be saved from
themselves. There are men in this State who would peel to their
political shirts if they could lick Thelismer Thornton in his own
district just now when the legislative caucuses are beginning. But I
won't let you be fooled that way!"

"The name of 'Duke' fits you all right," piped Niles from a safe
distance. "This is a dynasty and I've said it was, and now you're
showing the cloven foot!"

Thornton disdained to reply. He continued to walk about among them.
"They're trying to work you, boys," he went on. "I heard they were
conniving to do business in this district, but I haven't insulted you by
paying any attention to rumors. I want you to go down to that caucus
this afternoon and vote for Harlan. You all know him. I'm an old man,
and I want to see him started right before I get done. You all know what
the Thorntons have done for you--and what they can do. I don't propose
to see you swap horses while you're crossing the river."

But they did not rally in the good old way. There was something the
matter with them. Those who dared to meet his gaze scowled. Those who
looked away from him kept their eyes averted as though they were afraid
to show their new faith. They had dared to march up to him behind Niles
and his buck sheep, masking revolt under their grins. But Thornton
realized that whoever had infected them had used the poison well. They
had come to laugh; they remained to sulk. And they who had baited him
with the unspeakable Niles understood their business when dealing with
such an old lion as he.

"You need a guardian, you fellows," he said, contemptuously. "Your
mutton marshal just fits you. But I'm going to keep you from buying the
gold brick in politics you're reaching for now."

"Wouldn't it be a good idea, Squire Thornton, to let us run our own
business awhile? You've done it for fifty years." It was still another
of the rebels that spoke.

"If you had come to me like men, instead of playing hoodlums behind a
lunatic and a sheep, I would have talked to you as men. But I say again
you need a guardian."

"We won't vote for you nor none you name. We've been woke up."

The old man threw up both his hands and cracked his fingers into his
palms. "And you're ready to take pap and paregoric from the first that
come along, you infants!"

"You're showing yourself now, Duke Thornton!" shouted Niles. "You've
used us like you'd use school-boys for fifty years, but you ain't dared
to brag of it till now!"

Thornton strode out from among them. He tossed his big arms as though
ridding himself of annoying insects. He had been stung out of
self-control. It was not that he felt contempt for his people. He had
always felt for them that sense of protection one assumes who has taken
office from voters' hands for many years, has begged appropriations from
the State treasury for them, has taken in hand their public affairs and
administered them without bothering to ask advice. He realized all at
once that jealousy and ingratitude must have been in their hearts for a
long time. Now some influence had made them bold enough to display their
feelings. Thornton had seen that sort of revolt many times before in the
case of his friends in the public service. He had always felt pride in
the belief that his own people were different--that his hold on them was
that of the patriarch whom they loved and trusted.

The shock of it! He kept his face from them as he toiled up the steps of
the old house. Tears sparkled in his eyes, sudden tears that astonished
him. For a moment he felt old and broken and childish, and was not
surprised that they had detected the weakness of a failing old man. He
would have gone into "The Barracks" without showing them his face, but
on the porch he was forced to turn. Some one had arrived, and arrived
tempestuously. It was the Hon. Luke Presson, Chairman of the State
Committee. He stepped down out of his automobile and walked around the
crowd, spatting his gloved hands together, and looking them over
critically. So he came to Thelismer Thornton, waiting on the steps, and
shook his hand.

Mr. Presson was short and fat and rubicund, and, just now, plainly
worried.

"This was the last place I expected to have to jump into, Thelismer," he
complained. "I know the bunch has been wanting to get at you, but I
didn't believe they'd try. I see that you and your boys here realize
that you're up against a fight!"

Ha shuttled glances from face to face, and the general gloom impressed
him. But it was plain that he did not understand that he was facing
declared rebels.

"They've slipped five thousand dollars in here, Thelismer," he went on,
speaking low. "They'd rather lug off this caucus than any fifty
districts in the State."

"I don't believe there's men here that'll take money to vote against
me," insisted Thornton. "But they've been lied to--that much I'll
admit."

"You've been king here too long, Thelismer. You take too much for
granted. They're bunching their hits here, I tell you. There are fifty
thousand straddlers in this State ready to jump into the camp of the men
that can lick the Duke of Fort Canibas--it gives a h----l of a line on
futures! I thought you had your eye out better."

The deeper guile had masked itself behind such characters as Ivus Niles,
and now Thornton realized it, and realized, too, to what a pass his
trustful serenity, builded on the loyalty of the years, had brought him.

That strained, strange look of grieved surprise went out of his face. He
lighted a cigar, gazing at his constituents over his scooped hands that
held the match.

They stared at him, for his old poise had returned.

"This is the chairman of our State Committee, boys," he said, "come up
to look over the field. He says there's a rumor going that Thornton
can't carry his caucus this year." The Duke dropped into his quizzical
drawl now. "I was just telling my friend Luke that it's queer how rumors
get started." He walked to the porch-rail and leaned over it, his shaggy
head dominating them. And then he threw the challenge at them. "The
caucus is going to be held in the other end of the village--not here in
my front dooryard. You'd better get over there. I don't need any such
clutter here. Get there quick. There may be some people that you'll want
to warn. Tell 'em old Thornton hasn't lost his grip."

He took Presson by the arm, and swung him hospitably in at the big door
of "The Barracks."




CHAPTER II

THE LINE-UP OF THE FIGHT


"That's too rough--too rough, that kind of talk, Thelismer," protested
the State chairman.

Thornton swung away from him and went to the window of the living-room
and gazed out on his constituents.

"You can't handle voters the way you used to--you've got to hair-oil 'em
these days."

Presson was no stranger in "The Barracks." But he walked around the big
living-room with the fresh interest he always felt in the quaint place.
Thornton stayed at the window, silent. The crowd had not left the
yard--an additional insult to him. They were gathering around Niles and
his sheep, and Niles was declaiming again.

The broad room was low, its time-stained woods were dark, and the
chairman wandered in its shadowy recesses like an uneasy ghost.

"It isn't best to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised
Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled
up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that are _for_ you."

"_For_ me?" snarled "the Duke," over his shoulder, and then he turned on
Presson. "That bunch of mangy pups out there for _me?_ Why, Luke, that's
opposition. And it's nasty, sneering, insulting opposition. I ought to
go out there and blow them full of buckshot."

He shook his fists at the gun-rack beside the moose head which flung
its wide antlers above the fireplace.

"Where's the crowd that's backing you--your own boys?"

"Luke, I swear I don't know. I knew there was some growling in this
district--there always is in a district. A man like Ivus Niles would
growl about John the Baptist, if he came back to earth and went in for
politics. But this thing, here, gets me!" He turned to the window once
more. "There's men out there I thought I could reckon on like I'd tie to
my own grandson, and they're standing with their mouths open, whooping
on that old blatherskite."

Chairman Presson went and stood with him at the window, hands in
trousers pockets, chinking loose silver and staring gloomily through the
dusty panes.

"It's hell to pave this State, and no hot pitch ready," he observed.
"I've known it was bad. I knew they meant you. I warned you they were
going to get in early and hit hard in this district--but I didn't
realize it was as bad as this. They're calling it reform, but I tell
you, Thelismer, there's big money and big men sitting back in the dark
and rubbing the ears of these prohibition pussies and tom-cats. It's a
State overturn that they're playing for!"

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