“Ah-hah! Massac!” said the old judge. “Well, gentlemen,” he went on, addressing the company generally, “I reckin I'll be goin' on home and turnin' in. This is the latest I've been up at night in a good while. I won't wait round no longer--I reckin everything is the same as settled. I wisht one of you boys would convey my congratulations to Mr. Prentiss and tell him for me that----” There was a bustle at the door and a newcomer broke in through the press of men's bodies. He was dripping with rain and spattered over the front with blobs of yellow mud. He was a tall man, with a drooping mustache and a nose that beaked at the tip like a butcher-bird's mandible. With a moist splash he slammed a pair of wet saddlebags down on the narrow shelf at the wicket and, fishing with his fingers under one of the flaps, he produced a scrawled sheet of paper. The editor of the Daily Evening News grabbed it from him and smoothed it out and ran a pencil down the irregular, weaving column of figures. “Complete returns on all the county races are now in,” he announced loudly, and every face turned toward him. “The returns from Massac Precinct make no changes in any of the races----” The cheering started in full volume; but the editor raised his hand and stilled it. “----make no change in any of the races--except one.” All sounds died and the crowd froze to silence. “Massac Precinct has eighty-four registered Democratic votes,” went on Tompkins, prolonging the suspense. For a country editor, he had the dramatic instinct most highly developed. “And of these eighty-four, all eighty-four voted.” “Yes; go on! Go on, Henry!” “And all eighty-four of 'em--every mother's son of 'em--voted for the Honorable William Pitman Priest,” finished Tompkins. “Judge you win by----” Really, that sentence was not finished until Editor Tompkins got his next day's paper out. The old judge felt blindly for a chair, sat down and put his face in his two hands. Eight or ten old men pressed in toward him from all directions; and, huddling about him, they raised their several cracked and quavery voices in a yell that ripped its way up and through and above and beyond the mixed and indiscriminate whoopings of the crowd. This yell, which is shrill and very penetrating, has been described in print technically as the Rebel yell.. IX. A DOGGED UNDER DOG