Howsoever, these optimists, as it developed, had reckoned without one factor: they had reckoned without a certain undercurrent of disfavour for Maydew which, though it remained for the most part inarticulate during the campaign, was to manifest itself in the county conventions. Personalities, strictly speaking, had not been imported into the fight. Neither candidate had seen fit to attack the private life of his opponent, but at the last moment there came to the surface an unexpected and, in the main, a silent antagonism against the Senator which could hardly be accounted for on the ground of any act of his official and public career. So, late in the afternoon of the first Tuesday after the first Monday, when the smoke cleared away and the shouting and the tumult died, the complete returns showed that of the nine counties, totalling one hundred and twenty delegate votes, Maydew had four counties and fifty-seven votes. Guest had carried four counties also, with fifty-one votes, while Bryce County, the lowermost county of the district, had failed to instruct its twelve delegates for either Maydew or Guest, which, to anybody who knew anything at all about politics, was proof positive that in the main convention Bryce County would hold the balance of power. It wouldn't be a walkover; that much was certain, anyhow. May-dew's jaunty smile lost some of its jauntiness, and anxious puckers made little seams at the corners of those greedy eyes of his, when the news from Bryce County came. As for Judge Priest, he displayed every outward sign of being well content as he ran over the completed figures. Bryce was an old-fashioned county, mainly populated by a people who clung to old-fashioned notions. Old soldiers were notably thick in Bryce, too. There was a good chance yet for his man. It all depended on those twelve votes of Bryce County. To Marshallville, second largest town in the district, befell the honour that year of having the district convention held in its hospitable midst; and, as the _Daily Evening News_ smartly phrased it, to Marshallville on a Thursday All Roads Ran. In accordance with the rote of fifty years it had been ordained that the convention should meet in the Marshallville courthouse, but in the week previous a fire of mysterious origin destroyed a large segment of the shingled roof of that historic structure. A darky was on trial for hog stealing upon the day of the fire, and it may have been that sparks from the fiery oratory of the prosecuting attorney, as he pleaded with the jury for a conviction, went upward and lodged among the rafters. As to that I am not in a position to say. I only know this explanation for the catastrophe was advanced by divers ribald-minded individuals who attended the trial.