General Barrett, whom the Logan County delegation had thus brought out, was, while not all perhaps that Knowlton had described him, nevertheless Lincoln's leading man. He was popular in his own community, he had amassed, if not strictly in his practice of the law, yet in the opportunities that practice opened to him, a comfortable competency. He had gone to Lincoln in an early day; he had led a regiment to the Civil War, and had come out of the army with a clean if not a brilliant record, and in the general distribution of brevets immediately following the close of the mighty conflict he had shared to the extent of an honorary brigadier-generalship. He had then gone home to resume his quiet life, and by carefully pursuing a middle course in all things, and avoiding the making of enemies, he had gradually built up a reputation for honesty and integrity that made him an ideal figure of the colorless, eminently respectable, safe and conservative citizen. He had been a strict, though not an aggressive party man, and whenever Logan County wished a name to juggle with in conventions, they chose the name of General William M. Barrett, knowing that he would not object, and so long as he was not nominated, that no one else could object. He had never been elected to an office of profit, and he had never been an avowed candidate for any, though he had served on the school board and on all the public committees, in addition to being invited to deliver orations on Decoration Day, yet he was ever in a calm and receptive mood, and while Logan County delegations had never gone so far as to nominate him for anything, he seemed never to doubt the sincerity of their support. But there comes a time in the career of the men whose names are continually before conventions when the lightning strikes them, and both Rankin and Randolph saw that the present hour was charged with just such a possibility. The delegates had voted and now sat awaiting the delivery of the first ballot. Hale began to call the roll of the counties. "DeWitt?" Hale called. "Eighteen votes for Conrad Sprague." "Logan?" O'Malley was up. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "on behalf of the solid delegation from Logan County I cast twenty-four votes for General William M. Barrett." O'Malley winked at Rankin as he sat down. "Mason?" "Mr. Chairman," cried McKimmon, emulative of O'Malley, "on behalf of the solid delegation from Mason County I have the honor to cast her eighteen votes for our present able congressman, Honorable Jerome B. Garwood!" And Rankin started a cheer. "Moultrie?" Randolph was standing prominently in the middle aisle, or what had been an aisle early in the day. "Mr. Chairman," he said, in heavy tones, "Moultrie County gives her fifteen votes to our _next_ congressman, Honorable Conrad Sprague." And then the Sprague delegations cheered. "Piatt?" the roll-call proceeded. "Sprague fifteen votes!" "Polk?"