The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush

t had never prefigured a home-coming to coi

ghtly in at the bed's-head window, a cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and his father, a little hea

of mingled emotions: of astoundment that he had recognized no familiar landmark in the midnight faring through the hills or on the approach to the home of his childhood; of something akin to keen regret that the old had given place so thoroughly and

se; the home-coming, some phases of which he had vaguely dreaded, was a fact accomplished, and the new life-t

home in the motor, and I looked out of the window and saw you as you came up the steps. According to the psychics, there ought to have be

, son, how on top of earth did you happen to blow in

tal last night. But my train was laid out by a yard wreck at Twin Buttes just before dark, and I left it and took to the hills-horseback.

, with the humorous wrinkles coming and going at the corners of the kindly eyes. "Did you have the nerve to think you were going to c

ride out to Debbleby's. So I hired the bronco and set out-and that reminds me:

a present of it outright if you had told him who you

among the Lost River hogbacks. But after that I was pretty successfully lost. I'm ashame

Jack Barto found you?

orous emendation. And then: "Who is this ubiquitous Barto who goes

e a timber-cruiser and log-sealer, but I reckon he doesn't work very hard at his trade. Down in the lower wards of New Yo

on-that's all. Of course, I knew they had stumbled upon the wrong man; and after a while I succeeded in making Barto accept that hypothesis; at least, he accepted it sufficiently to bring me here for identification. Since

ully. "Talked about dropping you into Lost River, did they? H'm. I reckon we'l

, with a hatchet face and owlish eyes. Before I learned his name we had talked a bit-killing time in the smoking-room. He said he was interested in mines and timber. Along toward the last

ny has been cutting timber in the Lost River watershed reserves, and he pr

Barto and two others; and I'm pretty sure he pointed me out to them. An hour or so later, three horsemen passed me on the mesa,

e them y

s lying, but, anyway, he'd give me a chance to 'prove up.' Then they broug

ria when you saw her?

y remember that I had never met her," stammered the yo

l run the boundary lines on this thing one time as another, son. You don't like Honoria; you've made up your mind you're not going to let yourself l

ionate haste to stop th

I have been picturing her to be; and if she were not, I should still try to believe that we are both sufficiently

s me: I was to come up here and see if you were awake, an

you may make my apologies to Mrs. Blount and tell her I'll be down pronto. There; doesn't that sound as if I were getting

oming remotely resembling the fact. In each succeeding hour of the long summer day the edges of the chasm of the years drew closer together; and when, in the afternoon, his father put him on a horse and rode with him to a corner of the vast home domain, a corner fenced off by sentinel cottonwoods and wat

ther said gently. "I thought maybe you'd come back som

t: the simple, old-fashioned furniture, the crossed quirts over the high wooden mantel, his mother's rocking-chair ... that was the final touch

iculture and fruit-growing had come about; how the great irrigation project in Quaretaro Canyon had put a thousand square miles of the fertile mesa under cultiva

se bones we used to find sticking in the old gully banks on Table Mesa. By the way, that reminds me: are there any of

had called the "biggest man in the State." "But there are some of the petrified bones left, too, I

ent rejoinder. But after the admission was made he qualified it. "Perhaps I ou

se was not thrown a

hter got against you,

s little better than a grimace. "It's merely that she is jealous of

le ranges. Then he added: "I'm right glad it hasn't come in yo

h had prompted it, he told his brief love-tale, hiding nothing-not even the hope that in the years to come Patricia might possibly find her career sufficiently unsatisfying

eyes which the son had more than once marked as the

, when the ambling saddle-animals had cover

the 'career,'" was the young man's answer. Then he added: "I want work, father-that is what I am out here for

in the gentle smile provoked by this

he wise man. "And as for the work, I reckon we can satisfy you, if your appe

ining that way. The schools of to-day are turning out business lawyers-men who know the commercial and industrial codes and are trained particularly in their application to the gr

have changed

g need for good men: men who will not let the big income they could command in private undertakings weigh against pure patriotism and a plain duty to their country and their fellow-men; strong men who would ad

rooping mustaches of that veteran poli

need 'em mighty bad. Think you could fill the bi

ld lie as they might fall smiled at what seemed t

you know, I am still a legal resident of the good old Commonwealth of Massa

e time you could get elected to an offi

are forgetting that I am as completely unknown in the sage-brush hills as yo

ly as he threw up the brim of t

slate hangs up behind the door at Wartrace Hall; and I don't know but what some people would say that old Sage-Brush Dave himself does most o

lately out of the well-ba

as a possibility on the State ticket before I've been

at any day in the week when somebody comes along with a fistful of yellow-backs. The fight is on between the people of this State and the corporations; it was begun two years ago, and the people got the laws all right, but they forgot to ele

ny man's, father," was the theorist's sober r

d-holes too deep to ford. We've got a good man for governor right now; not any too broad maybe, but good-church good. Nobody has ever said he'd take a bribe; but he isn't heavy enough

ough he was not from Missouri, was beginning to

attorney-general. The fellow who is in now, Dortscher, is one of the candidates, but we've crossed his name off. The next man we considered was Jim Rankin. In some

ouching the manner in which the political affairs of a free

?" he

f your hew-to-the-line fellows,

ly proposing him for a high office in the State in which, notwithstanding the birthright, he was as new as the newest immigrant, seemed blankly incredible.

pposed to be a free country, with a representative government elected by the suffrages of the people; do you mean to say that you and a few of yo

s of the veteran w

on theory, that's all, son. When it comes down to the real thing-practical politics, as some folks call it-

other

he timber people, the irrigation compa

the railroads-or his railroa

to a still slower walk. "Where did

a of the Winnebasset Club, adding the

ried the older man, "that getti

new I was in Boston, and he sa

reckon that's about what he was told to do. But we won't fall apart on that, son. To-morrow we'll run down to the city, and you can look the g

e of good government if he should consent to be the candidate of the machine. But, on the other hand, he saw instantly what a power a fearless public prosecutor could be in a misguided commonwealth where the lack was not of good laws, but of men strong enough and courageous enough to administ

nd the father, looking on, suspected that Evan's taciturnity was an expression of his prejudice against the woman who had taken his

ntry had described as the court of last resort; this when Evan had disappeared and the long-stemm

twitching at the corners of the pretty mouth. "He is a dear boy, and he i