the Rio Blanco.

"Hold on a minute, boys, before you scatter! Line up here, and let's give
three cheers and a tail-twister for next-Governor Bucks! Now,
then--_everybody_! Hip, hip----"

The ripping crash of the cheer jarred Loring's eye-glasses from their
hold, and he replaced them with a smile. Four times the ear-splitting
shout went up, and as the echoes of the "tiger" trailed off into silence
the stentorian voice was lifted again.

"Good enough! Now, then; three groans for the land syndicates, alien
mortgagees, and the Western Pacific Railroad, by grabs! and to hell with
'em!"

The responsive clamor was a thing to be acutely remembered--sustained,
long-drawn, vindictive; a nerve-wrenching pandemonium of groans, yelpings
and cat-calls, in the midst of which the partizans shuffled into loose
marching order and tramped away townward.

"That answers your question, doesn't it?" said Kent, smiling sourly. "If
not, I can set it out for you in words. The Western Pacific is the
best-hated corporation this side of the Mississippi, and I am its local
attorney."

"I don't envy you," said Loring. "I had no idea the opposition
crystallized itself in any such concrete ill will. You must have the whole
weight of public sentiment against you in any railroad litigation."

"I do," said Kent, simply. "If every complainant against us had the right