"You've come to try to haul me out of the fire?" he inquired, ignoring
the direct question.
"I've come to ask you, first, if it is possible for you to stand from
under. Can you?"
"Oh, yes; I reckon I could dodge, if I had to."
"Then do it, and do it quickly, dad! As there is a God above us, I'm
going to push this thing through to the bitter end. To-morrow morning I
shall give Gantry his time limit. If the time goes by, leaving the
house-cleaning still undone, I shall keep my promise to the letter. You
know, and I know, what will happen after that."
"Yes; I reckon I know," was the half-absent reply.
Blount threw his napkin aside and glanced at his watch.
"I've got to go back to the office and work a while," he said. And then:
"I feel better for having had this talk with you, dad. I'm sorry you are
finding it necessary to fight me, and a thousand times sorrier that I've
got to fight you. But I can't give ground now, and still be a man and
your son. Think it over and dodge. It'll break my heart a second time if
I have to pull the other fellow's house down and bury you in the wreck."
For some little time after his son had left the table and the private
dining-room, the Honorable Senator Sage-Brush sat absently toying with
his dessert-spoon. When he rose to go out, the battle light in the gray
eyes was the signal which not even his most faithful henchmen could
always interpret; but it was a signal which all of them knew by sight,
and one which many of them feared.
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