"Widder who?" returned Watts, grinning and putting his hand to his
ear.

When John repeated his question the third time, McHurdie said:--

"I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny." And when the boy
refused to "bite," Watts went on: "If any one asks you what Watts
McHurdie thinks about politics so long as he is in the harness
business, you just take the fellow upstairs, and pull down the
curtain, and lock the door, and tell him you don't know, and not to
tell a living soul."

With Bob Hendricks, John had little better success in solving the
mystery of the rise of Bemis. "Father says he's effective, and he
would rather have him for him than against him," was the extent of
Bob's explanation.

Ward's answer was more to the point. He said: "Lige Bemis is a living
example of the power of soft soap in politics. We know--every man in
this county knows--that Lige Bemis was a horse thief before the war,
and that he was a cattle thief and a camp-follower during the war; and
after the war we know what he was--he and the woman he took up with.
Yet here he has been a member of the legislature and is beginning to
be a figure in state politics,--at least the one to whom the governor
and all the fellows write when they want information about this
county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and
can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and
oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer--yes,
sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into
court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court