“You certainly _did_ play into Wiggin's hands,” growled the disgruntled Garner. “That's exactly what a glib-tongued skunk like him would want.” “Well, it gave me a minute to try to get my wind, anyway,” said Tingle, still red in the face, “but I wasn't equal to a mob of baseball rooters like that. I started in to deny some of Wiggin's charges when another smart Alec spoke up and said: 'Hold on! tell us about the time you and your candidate started home from a ball at Catoosa Springs in a buggy, and were so drunk that the horse took you to the house of a man who used to own him sixteen miles from where you wanted to go. Of course, you all know, boys, that was a big exaggeration, but I had no idea it was generally known. Anyway, I thought the crowd would laugh their heads off. I reckon it was the way I looked. I felt as if every man, woman, and child there had mashed a bad egg on me and was chuckling over their marksmanship. I ended up by getting mad, and I saw by Wiggin's grin that he liked that. I managed to say a few things in denial, and then Wiggin got up and roasted me and my paper to a turn. He said that in supporting Dwight editorially the _Headlight_ was giving sanction to Dwight's ideas in favor of the negro and against honest white people, and that every man there who had any family or State pride ought to stop taking the dirty sheet; and, bless your life, some of them did cancel their subscriptions when they met me after the speaking; but I'm going to keep on mailing it, anyway. It will be like sending free tracts to the heathen, but it may bear fruit.” CHAPTER V. [Illustration: 9054] ALF an hour later all the young men had left the room except Garner and Dwight. Garner still wore the frown brought to his broad brow by Tingle's recital. “I've set my heart on putting this thing through,” he said; “and while it looks kind of shaky, I haven't lost all hope yet. Of course, your reckless remarks about the White Caps have considerably damaged us in the mountains, but we may live it down. It may die a natural death if you and Dan Willis don't meet and plug away at each other and set the talk afloat again. I reckon he'll keep out of your way when he's sober, anyway.” “I am not running after him,” Carson returned. “I simply said what I thought and Wiggin made the most of it.” Garner was silent for several minutes, then he folded his dime novel and bent it across his knee, and when he finally spoke Dwight thought he had never seen a graver look on the strong face. He had seen it full of emotional tears when Garner was at the height of earnest appeal to a jury in a murder case; he had seen it dark with the fury of unjust legal defeat, but now there was a strange feminine whiteness at the corners of the big facile mouth, a queer twitching of the lips.