It was no easy matter to hide the tariff issue from Jimmy Grayson, who was exceedingly watchful of all things about him, despite his great labors in the campaign; yet his associates were aided to some extent by the rather meagre character of the newspapers which now reached them, newspapers published in small towns, and therefore unable to pay for long despatches from the East. But even these were censored with the most jealous care; if they contained anything about the hot tariff discussion off there in the Atlantic States, they disappeared before they could reach the candidate. All the news was inspected with the most rigid care, just as if the real feeling of his subjects was being hidden from a kaiser or a czar. But Harley and his friends soon found that they had laid upon themselves a great and onerous task, and to Harley, at least, it was all the heavier because he found, at last, that his heart was not wholly in it. Despite all their caution, references to the tariff debate would dribble in; Jimmy Grayson began to grow suspicious; he would ask about the work of the campaign orators in the East, and he seemed surprised that his friends, above all the correspondents, should have so little news on the subject. "I should like to see some of the New York or Chicago newspapers, even if they are ten days old," he said. "It seems odd that we have not had any for a week now." "The metropolitan press scarcely reaches these isolated regions," said Harley. "We have been in isolated regions before, and we had the New York and Chicago newspapers every day." Harley did not answer, and presently contrived some excuse for leaving Jimmy Grayson, being much troubled in mind, not alone because the candidate was growing suspicious, but because of a rising belief that he ought to know, that the truth should not be hidden from him. If the tariff was to be an issue, then the candidate should declare himself, cost what it might. Yet Harley, for the present, followed the course that he had set. But he shivered a little when he looked at the New York and Chicago newspapers that were smuggled about the train; the tariff question was swelling in importance, and the head-lines over the debates were growing bigger. A stray copy of the _Monitor_ reached them, and it was big with prophecy: "At last the gauntlet has been thrown down by the wise, the conservative, and the high moral element of the party." It said, editorially: "Our impulsive young man will learn that there are older and soberer heads, and he must bow his own to them. The _Monitor_ has long foreseen this necessary crisis, although the blind multitude would not believe us, and we are both glad and proud to say that we have had our modest little share in forcing it."