And in the convention that summer Lige Bemis strode with his ragged cigar sticking from the corner of his mouth, with his black eyes blazing, and his shock of black hair on end, begging, bulldozing, and buying delegates to vote for him. He had the river wards behind him to a man, and he had the upland townships where the farmers needed a second name on their notes at the bank; and in the gentleman's ward--the silk-stocking ward--he had Gabriel Carnine, chairman of the first ward delegation, casting the solid vote of that ward for Bemis ballot after ballot. And when Bemis got Minneola township for fifty dollars,--and everybody in the convention knew it,--he was declared the nominee of the party with a whoop. But behind Bemis was the sinister figure of young John Barclay working for his Elevator Company. He needed Bemis in politics, and Bemis needed Barclay in business. And there the alliance between Barclay and Bemis was cemented, to last for a quarter of a century. Barclay and Bemis went into the campaign together and asked the people to rally to the support of the party that had put down the rebellion, that had freed four million slaves, and had put the names of Lincoln and of Grant and Garfield as stars in the world's firmament of heroes. And the people of Garrison County responded, and State Senator Elijah Westlake Bemis did for Barclay in the legislature the things that Barclay would have preferred not to do for himself, and the Golden Belt Elevator Company throve and waxed fat. And Lige Bemis, its attorney, put himself in the way of becoming a "general counsel," with his name on an opaque glass door. For as Barclay rose in the world, he found the need of Bemis more and more pressing every year. In politics the favours a man does for others are his capital, and Barclay's deposit grew large. He was forever helping some one. His standing with the powers in the state was good. He was a local railroad attorney, and knew the men who had passes to give, and who were responsible for the direction which legislation took during the session. Barclay saw that they put Bemis on the judiciary committee, and by manipulating the judiciary committee he controlled a dozen votes through Bemis. He changed a railroad assessment law, secured the passage of a law permitting his Elevator Company to cheat the farmers by falsely grading their wheat, and prevented the passage of half a dozen laws restricting the powers of railroads. So at the close of the legislative session his name appeared under a wood-cut picture in the _Commonwealth_ newspaper, and in the article thereunto appended Barclay was referred to as one of the "money kings of our young state." That summer he turned his wheat into his elevator early and at a low price, and borrowed money on it, and bought five new elevators and strained his credit to the limit, and before the fall closed he had ten more, and controlled the wheat in twenty counties. Strangers