"What are you offered for lots in Fort Benton now, Doctor?" teased Latimer, with a flash of his old humor. "Let me explain, Phil," he said. "I know it would be a sacrifice for you to leave your business here; you've made a success with your cattle, and I envy you the independent, care-free existence." "You don't appreciate the difficulties with drouths and blizzards," put in Danvers, "to say nothing of competition and low prices." "Nothing!" exclaimed Latimer, with a gesture of his hand that swept away such trivialities like mere cobwebs that annoy but do not obstruct the vision. "All this is nothing! It is the complications with men--the relations with people--that weary and sicken and break the heart! I've tried to put up a clean record, a straight fight; I've tried to give honest service, and it seems as if the odds were all against me!" "What do you want?" asked Danvers, more moved at the sight of his friend's distress than the need of his country. "We want to put you in the Legislature as the senator from Chouteau County!" cried Latimer, flushed and eager. "If only a better class of men would go into politics! I can't blame them for wanting to keep out, and yet what is our country coming to? What can one man do alone? If you or the doctor or men of that character were in office, it wouldn't be so hard a fight. And with you in Helena, Phil----" The familiar name, in the soft voice of the Southerner, stirred the heart of Danvers like a caress. He was lonely, too--he had not realized how much so, till the hand of his friend was stretched out to him, not only for aid, but for companionship. His heart throbbed as it had not done since a woman fired his boyish imagination. In the long years on the range he had grown indifferent, and rejoiced in his lack of feeling. Now he was waking, he was ready to take up his work in the world of men, ready to open his heart at the call of one who would be his mate. "I might be induced to run, since you put it so strongly," said Danvers, with a lightness that did not conceal from either of his friends the depth of his feeling. "Thank you, Phil." Danvers took the thin, nervous hand extended to him, and held it with a grasp that sent courage into the heart of Judge Latimer. It was a hand that had guided bucking bronchos and held lassoed steers, and the man weary with life's battles knew that a friend had come to his aid who would blench at no enemy. "Do you need any more men?" inquired Danvers, with a tone of assurance and natural leadership that amazed them both. "Do we _need_ them? Can you produce any more? That is the question," said Latimer. "There's always O'Dwyer, of course!" laughed Danvers. "Is he as devoted as ever?" inquired Latimer. "The same old worshipper," declared the doctor. "And, by George! now you speak of it, he wouldn't make a bad representative!"