One rather likes the optimistic fighter--purely as a fighter--of the Alvord stripe. He was so occupied with plans for the next day's battle that the dubious features of the contest were already clearing up in his mind with the forming of plans for attacking the situation. A few hours of sleep, and he was up and at them. His telephone called up the editors of the town with the morning star. Long before the enemy could have known of the breach in his works, his trusty troops were busy filling it up. He was almost happy again, when Edgington rushed into his presence with a newspaper crushed in his clenched fist, and all sorts of disaster depicted in his expression. "Jim," he cried, "have you seen this?" "No," answered Alvord. "It ain't that Scarlett business? I thought I'd got that----" "No, no! It isn't that!" groaned Edgington. "But we're done, all the same! Done to a finish! You might as well close the headquarters and go home, for if we win, on this platform, we lose, and all the money we've put in is lost! I tell you, Jim, 'Gene Brassfield is either insane--and I believe it's that--or he's the damnedest traitor and sneak and two-faced hound that ever stepped, and I'll have it out with him! Some way, if I wait ten years, I'll have it out with him, if I have to do it with a gun! His business leaves my office at once. Why, there aren't words fit for me to use, to describe the miserable, false, lying----" "See here, Edge!" said Alvord. "We may be done, as you say, but Eugene Brassfield has made you, and he's my friend, and you'd better not go on like that, here! Let me see that paper!" Edgington threw it to him. In heavy type he saw the fateful platform summarized in a black-bordered panel on the first page: BRASSFIELD'S PLATFORM 1. Strict enforcement of early closing regulations for saloons. 2. No franchises except on public bidding, and ample provision for subsequent acquisition by the city. 3. Gambling laws to be strictly enforced. 4. Segregation of vice. 5. Vote of the people on all important measures. 6. Appointments non-partizan on the merit system. 7. Publication of all items of campaign expenses. Alvord fell back in utter dismay. Then he read in full the manifesto which Amidon and Elizabeth had prepared; and, folding up the paper, he stuck it in a drawer, which he locked, as if thereby to seal up the direful news. For a moment he felt betrayed and utterly defeated. Then he straightened himself for a resumption of the battle.