This hasty calling of the convention was like a bomb-shell in the camp of the Sprague following, to use one of the war-like expressions that are trite in our sanguinary partisan politics. Pusey admitted as much when he wrote daily editorials denouncing the committee and what he called the snap judgment it had taken. The announcement, too, was not received with much favor in the other counties, for the time in which to call their county conventions was short, and the politicians were put to much trouble to form the combinations on which their own interests depended. But the four men who had met at Lincoln were a majority of the committee, and their action was conclusive. The other members, those from DeWitt, Piatt and Moultrie Counties had, like the rest, been notified by telegraph, and even by mail, but Rankin had taken care to send their telegrams at a late hour, knowing that the telegraph offices in the little towns were not open at night. Their letters of course reached them the next day--too late for them to get to the meeting. And so over the district, the preparations for the county conventions went forward. Rankin and Garwood made their trip, and made their speeches, and when they came home Rankin claimed solid delegations from Logan, Mason and Tazewell. The delegation from Tazewell was instructed for Garwood; those from Logan and Mason were not. Rankin also claimed votes in the DeWitt and Piatt delegations, and formulated such an elaborate equation that he was able to demonstrate to any one that Garwood would be nominated on the first ballot, and with votes to spare. Pusey made no claims in his newspaper. He was ever shrewd enough and shifty enough not to do anything openly that could stultify him in the future, but Rankin said that telegrams were constantly passing between him and Sprague. Garwood did not have his interview with the little editor. He had thought of it, and had even broached the subject to Rankin again, but Rankin was implacable in his hatred and vigorously opposed any such movement. In the strenuous fight that was coming on, and even then begun, he displayed again all of his old commanding resolution, and Garwood fell under the spell of his strong will. "They'll find Jim Rankin a pretty active corpse!" he was continually saying to Garwood. So the week passed, the county conventions were all held, and then a silence brooded over the political camps in the district as the delegations, like the mobilized detachments of an army, waited for the time to come when they should move on Pekin and begin the great battle. VIII