BOLLINGER. Too stingy, I reckon. Say, Joe, if you git through the convention, and they send you up to Jeff City, you'll have to jump on the corporations. JOE. Well, how do things look for the convention? BOLLINGER. Well, down Louisiana way looks about six and half a dozen. You wouldn't have any trouble at all, if we could get Radburn out o' the race. JOE. Well, I ain't got no right to ask him to do that. KATE. [_From the doorway._] Do you mean, Colonel, that Mr. Radburn's following will be a serious opposition to father's nomination? BOLLINGER. Well, it looks that way, Kate. KATE. Is there a chance of Mr. Radburn's getting the nomination? BOLLINGER. Yes, I should say it was a stand-off atween him an' the Guv'nor, but I'm a-rootin' for your pa. MRS. VERNON. Well, I can't see what right Jim Radburn has got to be as strong with the Democracy as Joe Vernon. [_Crosses to dish-pan._ JOE. You can't say nothin' against Jim, ma. MRS. VERNON. I ain't. I'm just askin'. BOLLINGER. Well, you see Jim's bein' sheriff four terms, an' never shootin' anybody-- MRS. VERNON. Why, he's shot fifty! BOLLINGER. Well, I meant never killin' nobody, has naturally endeared him to the peaceable element in the community. Jim has always said, and stuck to it, that a sheriff who couldn't wing a prisoner without killin' him, was a nuisance--and you take his record, and go clean through it, you'll find out this one thing. If a man was runnin', Jim fetched him in the leg. If he pulled a gun on him, Jim smashed that hand. And he says, "You ain't got a right to kill another man, unless that man draws two guns at the same time." JOE. Yes, I reckon Jim's the gamest we ever had. BOLLINGER. He came up on the stage to-night from Louisiana. JOE. Was he "'lectioneering" down there? BOLLINGER. No, I ain't heerd of him makin' no canvass. He was helpin' me to collect testimony. MRS. VERNON. Testimony? What fur? BOLLINGER. Sam Fowler. You know that Express Co. is holdin' him prisoner yet? JOE. Thought you was goin' to get a habus corpus? BOLLINGER. Well, I was; only I went to St. Louis yesterday to see Sam. He's all right. They've got 'im in a comfortable room at the Southern Hotel, an' they are tryin' to make him confess that he stood in with the express robber. He's livin' on the fat of the land, so I told him to stick it out as long as the company did, 'cause the longer they hold him, the more damages we'll get for false imprisonment. So Jim Radburn an' me been fillin' in the time, gettin' witnesses to his good character. MRS. VERNON. What's Radburn got to do with it? BOLLINGER. Well, you know--on account o' Emily. MRS. VERNON. Oh, yes! I reckon that'll put off their weddin', won't it? BOLLINGER. I'm tryin' to fix it that way, so's to pile up the damages. KATE. [Quickly.] Ma! MRS. VERNON. What is it, Kate? KATE. Why-- MRS. VERNON. Company? KATE. Yes. MRS. VERNON. Here, Lizbeth, take hold this basket _They carry out basket._