Garwood roused. While he was washing and shaving, he said: "Will Bailey preside?" "Yes--we put it through after a fight." "He'll do." "Yes," answered Rankin, spluttering in the water he lifted to his face in the bowl of his two palms, "he's got nerve." He groped for a towel. "Did you write the resolutions?" he asked Garwood. "Not yet," said the congressman; "I must do that." X The convention was to meet at ten o'clock, but at that hour, while the hotel was left desolate, the Circuit Court room in the old brick court house where the convention was to sit, was still empty, and scarcely divested of any of its solemnity by the chairs that had been set in order for the accommodation of the representatives of the people who were to deliberate there. For half an hour the delegates had been gathering at the somber building, and now clustered in groups in the historic portico that had witnessed, so many years before, one of the great debates between Lincoln and Douglas. The delegates found the shade grateful, and leaned against the gray stone columns smoking the cigars which the candidates had supplied with such prodigal generosity. With them were many spectators and the curiosity of these was hardly larger than the curiosity of the delegates, who, though they had all the power in their hands, could only speculate, not as to what they would do with the power, but what would be done with it for them, and they awaited the coming of their leaders with a calm, almost amusing submission to their desires and designs. The morning advanced, and with it the heat increased, until at length some of the delegates, on whom the deputed dignity of the people sat with such weight that they wished to feel some of its importance by taking their seats, entered the court room. There they resumed their curious speculations as to whether Garwood or Sprague would be nominated, awaiting the advent of some hand strong enough to gather them all together and mold them to its own purposes. But at length and suddenly there was a noise and in through the doors poured the crowd that had remained outside, bringing with it a palpable breath of heat. In the center of the throng was Jim Rankin, his smiles scattered abroad for all. He worked his way with heavy shoulders into the court room, and with an authoritative stride swung down towards the judge's bench where the presiding officer of the convention was to wield his gavel.