"Don't you think I'm beaten! Don't you think it, I tell you! I may be beaten _now_, you understand, but I'm not _beaten_! No, sir! I've only begun. I tell you, I've only begun. They can keep me off the delegation, what do _I_ care? I'll be at Springfield just the same. They can send that Singed Cat to Congress if they want to, what do I care? Jim Rankin--Jim Rankin--who's he? I'll lick 'em, I'll lick 'em _all_, every one, _yet_. You'll see, you wait and see. You hear me? You wait and see. I'll lick 'em all, every one, yet. I'll drive 'em out of the district. I'll drive 'em out of the state, from the Wabash on the east to the Mississippi on the west, from Dunleith to Cairo. I'll set the buffalo grass on fire and sweep the state clean of them. You will not find one of them o'er all the rolling prairies of Illinois." As he rolled out the word "Illinois," in the tone the orators of that state use when they wish to show their state pride, he swung his arm in an all-embracing circle, and his auditors dodged the slopping whisky. Then he stood and blinked at them. "Why don't you fellows drink?" he broke forth again. "What do you want to stand around that way for? What are you afraid of? Jim Rankin? Think I'm licked, do you? Think I'm dead politically, do you? Well, I'll show 'em. I'll show 'em all. Why don't you drink, Pusey; why don't you drink up? Think I ain't got any money? Well, I'll show you--Chris here knows me. I'll show you--" He fumbled in his pockets, produced a crumpled mass of green bills, and held them forth in his fist. "I tell you there isn't room for them and me on all the broad expanse of Illinois--" Some one struck up a favorite song of the campaign platforms: "Not without thy wondrous story, Illinois, Illinois; Shall be writ the nation's glory, Illinois, Illinois; In the record of the years, Abr'ham Lincoln's name appears, Grant and Logan--and our tears, Illinois, Illinois." The crowd huddled more closely together, and with heavy voices joined in the song. Some of the men, with serio-comical expressions, essayed the tenor, others the bass, though the bass predominated, and they sang over and over the few words of the song they could remember. During this maudlin exhibition, the door opened, and Rankin, with Bailey by his side, entered. Rankin was bespattered from hat to heel, even his face was freckled with the little spots where the viscous mud had dried. His huge body was flaccid with fatigue, and his appearance was enough to show how heavily he had toiled at the polls that day in his determination to defeat Garwood. Bailey showed no sign of the equally hard day he had spent. He walked with the same awkward, shambling gait, his little eyes looked out from their narrowed lids and roved about him with their customary cunning. He showed neither signs of exhaustion, though he always looked tired, nor of the elation that probably was in his breast at the great victory which that day had been his.