He was still sitting among them about the twilight hour when the conductor handed him a telegraphic despatch, and Harley knew that it was from his editor, who had a high appreciation of his merits, both personal and professional. The message was brief and pointed. It said: "Can't understand your request for a transfer. Your despatches from the campaign best work you have ever done; not only have all news, but write from the inside; you present the candidate as he is. Have telegraphed Mr. Grayson asking if there is any quarrel, and in reply he makes special request that you represent _Gazette_ with him to the end. Stay till you are sent for, and don't bother me again." Harley read it over a second time. Despite himself he smiled, and he smiled because he felt a throb of pleasure. "Good old chief," he said, and he understood now that a refusal of his request was a hope that he had dared not utter to himself. But he knew that he should have taken the great risk. He showed the despatch to Mr. Heathcote, and the committeeman was sincerely glad. "Your editor has done his duty," he said. Mr. Grayson did not allude to the subject, and Harley respected his silence, although devoutly grateful for the reply that he had made. Other telegrams caused by the threatened revolt in the mountains were also passing; some of them stopped at the house of Mr. Plummer, in Boise, and upon the trail of one of these telegrams, a forcible one, came a thin-faced and quiet but alert man, Mr. Henry Crayon, who in his way was a power in both the financial and political worlds. Mr. Crayon was perhaps the most trusted of the lieutenants of the Honorable Clinton Goodnight, and the two had held a long conference before his departure for the West, agreeing at the end of it that "it was time to make a move, and after that move to spring a live issue." Mr. Crayon was fairly well informed of the causes that agitated the soul of "King" Plummer, and as he shot westward on a Limited Continental Express he considered the best way of approach, inclining as always to delicate but incisive methods. Long before he reached Boise his mind was well made up, and he felt content because he anticipated no difficulty in handling the crude mountaineer, who was unused to the ways of diplomacy. He found the "King" in Boise, still hot and sulky. Mr. Plummer had not heard anything in person from the Graysons, nor had he sent any message to them, and the mountains were full of talk about his bolt, which was now spoken of as an accepted fact.