When the first rumblings of the storm that was to shake a continent broke over the Republic, he stepped forth to take his place in the world of action--the best equipped, most thoroughly trained, most perfectly poised man who had ever entered the arena of American politics. His rise was brilliant and unprecedented. In his first contest he met the foremost orator of the age, Sergeant Prentiss, and vanquished him on his own ground. In two years he took his seat in Congress, the favorite son of Mississippi. He had scarcely begun his career, as a lawmaker, when war was declared against Mexico. He resigned his high office, raised a regiment and once more found himself a soldier under the orders of stern old Zachary Taylor. On his first battle field at the head of his Mississippi regiment, he planted the flag of the Republic on the Grand Plaza of Monterey. And in the supreme crisis of the battle of Buena Vista, with the blood streaming from his wounds, he led his men in a charge against overwhelming odds, turned the tide from defeat to victory and gave the Presidency to the man who had denied to him his daughter's hand. He hobbled back on crutches to his brother's home in Mississippi amid the shouts and frenzied acclaim of a proud and grateful people. Within three years from the day he entered public life, he took his seat in the Senate Chamber of the United States beside Clay, Calhoun and Webster, the peer of any man within its walls, and with the conscious power of Knowledge and Truth, girded himself for the coming struggle of giants. The Story CHAPTER I THE CURTAIN RISES "For the Lord's sake, Jennie--" Dick Welford paused at the bottom of a range of steps which wound up the capitol hill from Pennsylvania Avenue. The girl standing at the top stamped her foot imperiously. "Hurry--hurry!" "I won't--" "Then I'll leave you!" The boy laughed. "You don't dare. It's barely sunup--still dark in spots--the boogers'll get you--" With a grin he deliberately sat down. "Dick Welford, you're the laziest white man I ever saw in my life--We won't get a seat, I tell you--" "We can stand up." "We won't even get our noses in the door--" "You don't think these old Senators get up at daylight, do you?" "They didn't go to bed last night--" "I'll bet they didn't!" Dick laughed. "I know one that didn't anyhow--" "Who?" "Senator Davis." "How do you know?" "Spent the night there. Father stayed so late, Mrs. Davis put me to bed. Regular procession all night long! And among his visitors the Blackest Republican of them all--" "Old Abe run over from Illinois to say good-by?" "No, but his right hand man Seward did--" "Sly old snuff-dipping hypocrite--" "Anyhow, he's the brains of his party." "And he called on Jeff Davis last night?"