the measures. Foresters, road builders, and agriculturists (expenses
paid) were sent for from other States; Mr. Ball and others came down from
Leith, and gentlemen who for a generation had written letters to the
newspapers turned up from other localities. In two cases the largest
committee rooms proved too small for the gathering which was the result
of Mr. Crewe's energy, and the legislative hall had to be lighted. The
State Tribune gave column reports of the hearings, and little editorial
pushes besides. And yet, when all was over, when it had been proved
beyond a doubt that, if the State would consent to spend a little money,
she would take the foremost rank among her forty odd sisters for
progression, the bills were still under consideration by those hardheaded
statesmen, Mr. Bascom and Mr. Botcher and their associates.

It could not be because these gentlemen did not know the arguments and
see the necessity. Mr. Crewe had had them to dinner, and had spent so
much time in their company presenting his case--to which they absolutely
agreed--that they took to a forced seclusion. The member from Leith also
wrote letters and telegrams, and sent long typewritten arguments and
documents to Mr. Flint. Mr. Crewe, although far from discouraged, began
to think there was something mysterious about all this seemingly
unnecessary deliberation.

Mr. Crewe, though of great discernment, was only mortal, and while he was
fighting his battle single-handed, how was he to know that the gods above
him were taking sides and preparing for conflict? The gods do not give
out their declarations of war for publication to the Associated Press;
and old Tom Gaylord, who may be likened to Mars, had no intention of
sending Jupiter notice until he got his cohorts into line. The strife,
because it was to be internecine, was the more terrible. Hitherto the
Gaylord Lumber Company, like the Winona Manufacturing Company of