"Er--goin' to Clovelly after wool this week, Jake?"

Jake reflected. He saw it was expedient that this errand should not smell
of haste.

"I was goin' to see Cutter on Friday," he answered.

"Er--if you should happen to meet Heth--"

"Yes," interrupted Jake.

"If by chance you should happen to meet Heth, or Bije" (Jethro knew that
Jake never went to Clovelly without a conference with one or the other of
these personages, if only to be able to talk about it afterward at the
store), "er--what would you say to 'em?"

"Why," said Jake, scratching his head for the answer, "I'd tell him you
was at Coniston."

"Think we'll have rain, Jake?" inquired Jethro, blandly.

Jake wended his way back to the store, filled with renewed admiration for
the great man. Jethro had given him no instructions whatever, could deny
before a jury if need be that he had sent him (Jake) to Clovelly to tell
Heth Sutton to come to Coniston for instructions on the occasion of his
Brampton speech. And Jake was filled with a mysterious importance when he
took his seat once more in the conclave.

Jake Wheeler, although in many respects a fool, was one of the most
efficient pack of political hounds that the state has ever known. By six