"I reckon not," was the gentle reply. "Neither do you need to tell me how you came to be out at Shonoho when I thought I'd left you tied hand and foot right here in the hotel." Then, with the quizzical smile wrinkling at the corners of the grave eyes: "How does the political wrestle strike you by this time, son?" "It strikes me that I haven't been in it; not even in the outer edges of it. Isn't that about the size of it?" "Oh, no; you've been doing good work, mighty good work. You've helped out in the only way that help could come in this campaign; you've stirred up a good, healthy public sentiment in favor of a square deal for everybody. McVickar was fixing to tangle it all up--get the people down on him until they'd simply legislate the life out of his railroad. But he couldn't see that." "He sees it now--the 'machine' has made him see it." "Yes. You didn't know that a machine could be put to any really righteous use, did you, boy? But in this campaign it has gone in to knock out the crookedness, big _and_ little. Listen, son; you heard what I told McVickar. After you'd sent me that wire from Boston last summer, saying you'd come, I lay awake nights projecting how I'd put you in training for a spell, and then help you into the saddle and make you the boss of the round-up, the same as I'd been. Then it came over me, all of a sudden, that I'd been as crooked as a dog's hind leg--that we'd all been crooked. Not that I've ever taken a dollar for my personal pocket, for I haven't; but I've bought and sold and dickered and schemed with the best of 'em, and the worst of 'em. On top of that, I began to ask myself how I'd like it to see you wallowing in the same old mud-hole, and--well, Evan, boy, you may have a son of your own some day, and then you'll know. I let things rock along until you came; until that first day at Wartrace when you ripped out at me about hewing to the line. Right then and there I made up my mind that I'd put the whole power of the 'machine,' as you call it, into one campaign for a clean election and a square deal." "Oh, good Lord!" ejaculated the son, "and I've been fighting you and your organization at every turn!" "Oh, no, you haven't," was the quick rejoinder.