friend over pityingly.

"Luke, _I mean_ that--but I don't intend to _do_ it, not by a blame
sight! I don't believe you ever realized that I was really honest deep
down. I have told you something from the bottom of my heart. But"--he
held out his big hands and closed and unclosed them--"if I should ever
let them loose that way they'd be picked up before they'd gone forty
feet by some other fellow that might be hollering reform and not be half
as honest as I am."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and squinted shrewdly, and spoke with
his satiric drawl.

"There was old Lem Ferguson. Lem got to reading books about soul
transmigration or something of the kind, and turned to and let all his
critters loose. Said that one living being didn't have any right to
enslave another living being. Told them to go and be free. And somebody
put his steers in the pound, and vealed two calves and sold 'em, and
milked his cows, and stole his sheep, and ripped the tags out of their
ears and sheared 'em for what wool they had. Luke, I'm no relative of
Lem Ferguson's when it comes to practical politics. I know just as well
as you do who's trying to steal this State, a hunk at a time. They've
had the nerve to tackle my district. But if they think that I'm going to
ungrip and let them grab it they've got a wrong line on old Thornton's
sheepfold."

"What do you need in the way of help?" asked the State chairman.

"Nothing." Thornton turned again to survey his unruly flock. It was
plain that they were baiting their overlord. Presson's acumen in