“You’re sure that Pat Gibbons consented to run as Warren’s candidate for state senator in the First District against Carroll--after promising me--_me_?” He bent his brows angrily and pointed with a long forefinger at his own breast. “Well, hell’s bells!” said Quinn. “Wasn’t Baldwin working with him half the night?” The colonel took his glasses from his nose and swinging them by their heavy cord, blinked with his old eyes at the square of sunlight blazing in the Clark Street entrance, across which, as on a vividly illuminated screen, the crowds on the sidewalk flitted like trembling figures in a kinetoscope. Presently he lifted himself heavily from his chair and gathered up his newspapers and his stick. “Well, Birdy,” he said wearily, “I guess I’ve got one more fight left in me.” * * * * * Most men thought it was Warren’s interview that caused the colonel to consent at last to lead the opposition against him, though some said it was but the fascination of politics, which is like the fascination of the sea, so that a man who follows it once must follow it till he dies. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d be glad to find the old man’s chair empty,” said Eph Harkness, of Macoupin, that afternoon. He had come up from Carlinville in response to a telegram from the colonel, and having registered, and given his bag and linen duster to a bell-boy, was removing his big felt hat to mop his wet brow. “I’m afraid he won’t be able to stand the strain of a campaign,” said Carroll. “Stand the strain! Him?” exclaimed Harkness. “Why, he’ll be alive and drawing pay when they’re referring to Si Warren as ex-senator!” “I hate to have them say such mean things about him,” Carroll persisted, thinking of the interview. “If they think they kin say any meaner things ’bout him than he kin ’bout them, jes’ let ’em lam in,” chuckled Mosely, of Alexander. “Yes,” mused Harkness, “it’ll be the greatest fight we’ve had in Illinois since Logan’s time. We’ve got a leader now.” There was an echo of the old days in his voice, which, with its gentle hint of regret, was lost on Carroll, who had not known the colonel in the old days.