THE CLARION




CHAPTER I

THE ITINERANT


Between two flames the man stood, overlooking the crowd. A soft breeze,
playing about the torches, sent shadows billowing across the massed folk
on the ground. Shrewdly set with an eye to theatrical effect, these
phares of a night threw out from the darkness the square bulk of the
man's figure, and, reflecting garishly upward from the naked hemlock of
the platform, accentuated, as in bronze, the bosses of the face, and
gleamed deeply in the dark, bold eyes. Half of Marysville buzzed and
chattered in the park-space below, together with many representatives of
the farming country near by, for the event had been advertised with
skilled appeal: cf. the "Canoga County Palladium," April 15, 1897, page
4.

The occupant of the platform, having paused, after a self-introductory
trumpeting of professional claims, was slowly and with an eye to
oratorical effect moistening lips and throat from a goblet at his elbow.
Now, ready to resume, he raised a slow hand in an indescribable gesture
of mingled command and benevolence. The clamor subsided to a murmur,
over which his voice flowed and spread like oil subduing vexed waters.

"Pain. Pain. Pain. The primal curse, the dominant tragedy of life. Who