Wint nodded. “I suppose not. What then?” “We-ell, I scouted around.” “Find out anything?” “Skinny Marsh had a skinful, too. And there was a drunk in the Weaver House when I drifted over there.” “Is it Mrs. Moody that’s selling?” Radabaugh shook his head. “I guess not.” Wint banged his desk. “Damn it, Jim! Who is it, then?” “I couldn’t say.” “Well, I want you to find out.” Radabaugh spat and considered. “They’s one thing,” he suggested mildly. “You might not have thought of it.” Wint grinned. “You talk like B. B. Beecham. What is it, Jim?” “I mean to say,” said Radabaugh, “this didn’t just happen. What I mean is, it didn’t just happen to happen. It was meant.” Wint studied him. “What’s in your mind?” “They’d have held off till after election, maybe,” Jim suggested. “Looks to me like they’re starting this to hit the election somehow. I can’t say just how. Don’t know. But it looks to me it was meant.” “You mean they’re trying to discredit me, say I don’t enforce the laws.” “Maybe that. Maybe something else. Just struck me it was something.” Wint got up abruptly. “I don’t give a hoot. This campaign business bores me, anyhow. But I’m not going to stand for this. You get busy, Jim. If you need help, say so. I’ll bring a man in from outside, if necessary. But I want to grab the man that’s selling. You understand?” “It’s your funeral,” said Radabaugh cheerfully, shifting the bulge in his cheek. “I’ll do my do.” “Go to it,” Wint told him. “I’m leaving it to you.” * * * * * But nothing happened. A week dragged past; a week in which it was reasonably clear that Wint was losing ground to Routt. Wint himself saw this as quickly as any man, and it troubled him. He asked Peter Gergue for advice--Amos was still out of town--and Peter told him to get up on his hind legs and rear and tear, but Wint shook his head. “I can’t do that. It isn’t in me. The whole thing makes me sick.” “You’ve naturally got to do it,” Gergue assured him. “Routt’s telling ’em to vote for him; and he’s telling them the same thing, over and over, till they know their lesson like a parrot. That’s advertising, Wint. Keep a-telling them the same thing till they know what they’re to do. You got to. Might as well come to it first as last.” “I can’t ask a man to vote for me.” “Why not?” Wint grinned, and flushed, and gave it up. And Gergue told him again that he would have to make a noise if he wanted to be heard in Hardiston; and he left Wint to think it over. B. B. Beecham, a day or two later, gave Wint the same advice, but to more purpose. Wint had dropped in at the _Journal_ office casually enough, and talked with two or three others who were there before him, till they drifted away and left him with B. B. Wint asked: “Well, how do things look to you, B. B.?” B. B. looked doubtful. “You’re not making a very strong campaign,” he said. Wint nodded. “I know it. It goes against the grain.”