A hatless man,--dripping wet, mud-smeared, grimy as a coal heaver,--took the State House steps three at a stride. In less than two minutes it was known throughout the Assembly that Caleb Conover had come. A word here, a hint there, a pulling of mysterious wires:--and the wavering backbones of his more doubtful satellites in the Legislature were miraculously stiffened. The Starke Bill had not yet come to a vote; thanks to Bourke and his colleagues who had wearied the Assembly to desperation and maddened Blacarda to frenzy by a continuous series of the most glaring filibuster tactics. But even the Conover faction’s tactics had, at the last, wellnigh exhausted themselves. “In another five minutes,” Caine was explaining, “you’d have been too late. Nothing could have stopped the bill from--” “Another five minutes!” mocked Conover, turning from his work. “Son, this ain’t the first, nor yet the millionth time that a diff’rence of five minutes has knocked hist’ry into a cocked hat. Now, send McGuckin to me. He needs a little more beguilin’. An’ I’m here to give it to him. Chase, now! He’s the last I’ll have time to see, before the vote.” Conover did not so much as trouble to go to the Assembly gallery with Caine when the Starke bill came up for balloting; but sat smoking and glancing over papers in the Committee room that he had commandeered as his personal office. Hither, soon afterward, Caine repaired; his handsome, tired face alight. “We win!” he announced triumphantly. “The bill’s defeated,--by two votes. Congratulations!” “Son,” observed Conover, glancing up from his desk, “what’s all the excitement? I told you last Friday that we’d win by two votes. Now, maybe, you’ll believe, another time, that I know what I’m talkin’ about. Where’s Blacarda?” “I passed him in the corridor on his way back to the hotel. Why do you ask? You’re done with him now.” “_Done_ with him?” echoed Conover. “Why, man, I ain’t _begun_ with him yet. I was just waitin’ to find where he’d gone. So long. See you at the _ho_tel before train time.” Conover walked out of the office, leaving Caine staring after him in perplexity. Straight to the hotel the Fighter drove. Arriving there he went, unannounced, to Blacarda’s room; entered without knocking, and closed the door behind him. Blacarda looked up from the task of packing his suit case. Bareheaded, still grimy and disheveled, Conover stood facing him. Blacarda rose from his knees beside the open suit case and started forward. “I guess you know why I’m here?” hazarded Caleb, looking across at the well-groomed figure, without the faintest trace of emotion. “To crow over your dirty, underhand victory of to-day?” blazed the other. “If so you can save yourself the trouble. Leave my room at once. I don’t wish it polluted or--”