The whole county had come in from the country, and farmers' muddy wagons were hitched to every rack, their owners clinging to the bridles of horses that reared and plunged as the bands went by. One township had sent a club of mounted farmers, who wore big hats and rode horses on whose hides were imprinted the marks of harness, and whose caparisons were of all descriptions from the yellow pelts of sheep to Mexican saddles, denoting a terrible scouring of the township before daylight that morning. These men were stern and fierce and formed a sort of rude cavalry escort for the great man whom they cheered so hoarsely. The procession did not go directly to the court house, for that was only two blocks away, but made a slow and jolting progress along those streets that were decorated for the occasion. There were flags and bunting everywhere and numerous pictures of the candidate himself, of varying degrees of likeness to him, and pictures, too, of his "running mate," the candidate for vice-president, who at that minute was enjoying a similar ovation in some far off Eastern village. Some of the householders, galled by the bitterness of partisanship, flaunted in their windows pictures of the candidate's rival, but the great man lifted his hat and bowed to them, clustered in silence before their residences, as impartially as he did to those of his own party. In the last two blocks before the procession reached the court house square they could hear a man speaking, and Garwood knew that the voice was the voice of General Stager. The old court house standing in its ancient dignity in a park of oak trees, lifting its plastered columns with a suggestion of the calm of classic beauty, broke on their sight, and the music of the bands, as they brayed into the square, filled the whole area with their triumphant strains and cheer on cheer leaped toward them. The music and the cheers drowned the voice of General Stager, and his audience suddenly left him and surged toward the approaching procession. The cheering was continuous, the candidate's white head was bare most of the time, and when the carriage stopped and he was assisted up the steps into the speaker's stand, the bands exultantly played "Union Forever, Hurrah, Boys, Hurrah!" the horns fairly singing the words of the song.