Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE RAMRODDERS BY HOLMAN DAY AUTHOR OF KING SPRUCE, ETC. 1910 CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION II. THE LINE-UP OF THE FIGHT III. DENNIS KAVANAGH'S GIRL IV. THE DUKE AT BAY V. A CAUCUS, AS IT WAS PLANNED VI. A CAUCUS, AND HOW IT WAS RUN VII. WITH THE KAVANAGH AT HOME VIII. THE MANTLE OF THELISMER THORNTON IX. IN THE CENTRE OF THE BIG STATE WEB X. A POLITICAL CONVERT XI. A MAN FROM THE SHADOWS XII. DEALS AND IDEALS XIII. THE DUKE'S DOUBLE CAMPAIGN XIV. THE BEES AND THE WOULD-BES XV. SITTING IN FOR THE DEAL XVI. THE HANDS ARE DEALT XVII. THE ODD TRICK XVIII. THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP XIX. THE RAMRODDERS RAMPANT XX. A GIRL'S HEART XXI. STARTING A MULE TEAM XXII. FROM THE MOUTH OF A MAID XXIII. A TRUCE XXIV. A GOVERNOR AND A MAID XXV. WOMEN, AND ONE WOMAN XXVI. THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAID XXVII. THE EVERLASTING PROBLEM XXVIII. ONE PROBLEM SOLVED THE RAMRODDERS CHAPTER I THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION War and Peace had swapped corners that morning in the village of Fort Canibas. War was muttering at the end where two meeting-houses placidly faced each other across the street. Peace brooded over the ancient blockhouse, relic of the "Bloodless War," and upon the structure that Thelismer Thornton had converted from officers' barracks to his own uses as a dwelling. At dawn a telegraph messenger jangled the bell in the dim hall of "The Barracks." It was an urgent cry from the chairman of the Republican State Committee. It announced his coming, and warned the autocrat of the North Country of the plot. The chairman knew. The plotters had been betrayed to him, and from his distance he enjoyed a perspective which is helpful in making political estimates. But Thelismer Thornton only chuckled over Luke Presson's fears. He went back to bed for another nap. When he came down and ate breakfast alone in the big mess-room, which he had not allowed the carpenters to narrow by an inch, he was still amused by the chairman's panic. As a politician older than any of them, a man who had served his district fifty years in the legislature, he refused to believe--intrenched there in his fortress in the north--that there was danger abroad in the State. "Reformers, eh?" He sneered the word aloud in the big room of echoes. "Well, I can show them one up here. There's Ivus Niles!"