Chapter 21 - Page 2

were truly bound to him with "hooks of steel." Nor was he ungrateful. The moisture rose in his eyes when he first heard of their accounts, and in privacy he confided to his wife that he did not know how to thank them.

"If I were you I should not say anything," she advised. "They will like it better if you don't."

And he did not.

Now the campaign took on a new phase. Even in the beginning it had differed from any other ever waged in America, and since the Philipsburg conference that difference, already great, increased. It was permeated throughout by the personal element, party platforms sank into the background, and in the foreground stood the titanic figure of Jimmy Grayson fighting single-handed against a host of foes.

His hero appealed more powerfully than ever to Harley; every sympathy within him was aroused by this lone figure who stood like Horatius at the bridge--the old simile was always coming to him--and under its influence his despatches took on a vivid coloring and a keen, searching quality that thrilled all who read. And many other newspapers gave the same lifelike impression.

The figure of the candidate, although he was admittedly a beaten man, loomed larger than ever to the whole country, and his enemies, although counting already the fruits of victory, began to feel a certain awe of him. They showed an anxiety to keep away from him, even in what they considered his dying moments, and no speaker dared to meet him on the platform, despite the recollections of his defeat at Egmont. The opposition often alluded to this "defeat," and sought to make great capital of it, but the sensation that it had created at first faded. It was surrounded by too many brilliant triumphs; people would say that on the day of his defeat he was ill, like Napoleon at Leipsic; that he was giving daily proofs that he was without a match in the world, and one such little incident did not count.

The split in the party was made complete. Mr. Goodnight, Mr. Crayon, and eighteen of their associates, all men of wealth and influence, came out in a formal signed statement published first in the Monitor, stating their position in calmness and moderation and in measured language. They said that they had tried to support Mr. Grayson; they had given him every chance; they had always been ready with advice; they had sought to instil in him a full sense of his responsibility, and to impart to his mind the breadth and solidity so necessary in a Presidential nominee; they were strong in party loyalty, and they hesitated long before taking such a momentous step; but they knew that in every great crisis brave men who would not hesitate at great risk to lead must be found; therefore they stepped into the breach. Reluctantly and with much grief they announced that they could not support Mr. Grayson. He was a menace to the country, and they felt that they must remove this