The Boss went on: “I wan’ to say that I’ve never laid eyes on him but once, ’n’ never spoke a word with him in my life. But I ain’t lived all this while ’thaout learnin’ to read somethin’ of a man’s natur’ in his face. I believe he’s honest and straight-aout; I don’t believe there’s a crookid hair in his head. P’raps he’s got some naotions that we’d look on as finnickin’ up here in Jay, but I ain’t afeard o’ them. It’s better to hev a man standin’ so upright thet he bends back’rd, then to hev---- to hev---- the fact is, Mr. Cheerman, _I_ think I’ve said ’baout enough. Th’ other candidate hain’t showed up today! P’raps it’s jest as well fur him that he hain’t. I guess he’ll consider that he’s got abaout threw with deestrick politics--but I don’t want to appear to be rubbin’ it in. The lawyers hev a Latin sayin’ abaout speakin’ nothin’ but good o’ the dead----” Beekman stopped short. The Chairman had risen to his feet. Half the delegates had followed his example, and were gazing intently at one of the tall, small-paned windows on the right side of the room. The three reporters who were sitting in the clerk’s desk had begun climbing over the rails and weaving their way between the chairs toward this same window. A hum of rising murmurs was running through the audience. Beekman, finding suddenly that he had no auditors, and disconcerted at the interruption, looked about the room for a moment, in search of an explanation. Then he followed the direction of the faces, and saw his retainer, Jim Bunner, clambering in under the lifted sash, and making strenuous, almost frantic, efforts meanwhile to attract his attention. The man was breathless with excitement. He had climbed to the window from the roof of a low adjoining shed, and he could be heard now, as he found a footing on the back of a bench, in panting explanation of his conduct: “I _hed_ to come this way! It’d ’a taken me tew long to’ve got threw the crowd at th’ door. I’ve got news for th’ Boss that won’t keep a second!” He had pushed his way roughly through the throng now, brushing the reporters aside with especial impatience, and stood whispering, gasping his tidings in Beekman’s ear. The assemblage, silent now as the midnight watch, read in the deepening shadows and shocked severity of the Boss’s face that something far out of the ordinary had happened. Beekman appeared to be asking some questions, and pondering the whispered answers with increasing emotion. The waiting hundreds, all on their feet now, watched him in a tremor of expectation. At last he spoke, in a low, changed, yet extremely distinct voice: “Mr. Cheerman, when I spoke abaout sayin’ nothin’ but good o’ th’ dead, I spoke unbeknaown to myself like a prophet. My friend here brings some awful news. Mr. Fairchild o’ Dearborn has jest been faound, stark ’n’ cold, crunched under his hosses ’n’ carriage, at the bottom of Tallman’s ravine!” CHAPTER XXV.--“YOU THOUGHT I DID IT!”