The meeting opened with O'mie's band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in the cruel slavery of Indian captivity. I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at the audience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiar face. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who was watching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master of ceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst of Springvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him any more than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. And yet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted his appearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-dignified. Education had a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the manner of the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time the travelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feet after his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlessly in the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and finding none, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself to retreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure was written all over his banner.