8 The Case Against Carton

It was Guthrie’s unpleasant duty the next day to send a despatch, stating that the House would endeavour to impeach its Speaker, Philip Carton, a young man of obscure parentage, who had been held up to the boys of the State during the last three or four years as a model of what might be achieved in the land of opportunity.

The news was beginning to filter through other sources, and he was released from his promise to Warfield. Senator Cobb told him of it, Mr. Pike brought him the story, and it came, too, from many other sources.

Guthrie was informed also that the powers behind Pursley, as Jimmy Warfield had said, would not try for mere expulsion, but for impeachment in due form, carrying with it if successful the loss of citizenship. The House by a two-thirds vote might expel any of its members, but an impeachment would have to be laid before the Senate, which would resolve itself into a trial court, and if a two-thirds majority could be secured, would find the Speaker guilty and drive him in disgrace from the Legislature.

It was with a heavy heart and pen that Guthrie wrote these things. He knew Carton’s faults, but he was confident of his absolute rectitude, although he could not overlook the formidable forces arrayed against him and the belief in his guilt—or at least fault—entertained by many who really liked him.

The next day the Times and all the other newspapers of the State contained sensational despatches from the capital. Carton would be put on trial, and the necessary methods of procedure foreshadowed a long and desperate fight. The whole State was eager for the least scrap of news about it, and at once parties formed; nor were these parties always political. Men did not divide on the old Republican and Democratic lines. It became a personal question, and for the moment the public lost sight of the possible action of the Republican minority in both House and Senate. Yet it was a minority which at the crisis might wield the balance of power.

Nor was the feeling in the State wholly of displeasure. It is a State that loves a political fight—particularly if it is waged about a personality; and, when this personality was of such prominence as the Speaker of the House, and the case was so unusual, then the promise for a lively winter was very good indeed. The newspapers would be filled with interesting reading, and, as they followed the evidence, would also discuss hotly the question of Carton’s guilt or innocence. To the whole population, it would be a great battle with themselves as the spectators and the capital as the arena.

At the capital, however, many men were occupied with other things than the mere panoramic effect of the battle. This question of the Republican minority was to them an immediate and pressing matter. They recognised at once the power of the Republicans, but they were unable to say what that party would do with it. Would they follow the evidence and divide according to their personal views, or would they act as a solid political body? And, even in the latter case, another question arose—would they be for Carton or against him? By either course, they could inflict damage upon the prestige of the Democratic party; that is, by proving their Speaker to be a scoundrel, or by saving an innocent man from the rage of a Democratic mob.

There were eight Republican members of the Senate and thirty-seven of the House, coming chiefly from the mountains, and Guthrie was quite sure that, when the fight grew hot, Mr. Pike would be their leader. Mr. Pike was his very good friend and, therefore, he sought him.

The Senator was in his room in a bleak boarding-house—all the mountain members were poor, and invariably they had poor quarters—but he gave Guthrie a sincere welcome. Guthrie noticed at once that the mountaineer looked troubled. He pulled his whiskers nervously, and gazed absently out of the window.

“Mr. Pike,” said Guthrie, “I’ve come to interview you.”

“All right, go ahead,” said Mr. Pike, with a faint smile. “What is it you want to know? About the prospects for the next wheat crop in the mountains? Well, there won’t be any; we don’t raise wheat.”

“It’s a political crop that I’m talking about. You know the charges against Carton—a man whom you like.”

“Yes, I like him,” said Mr. Pike meditatively, as he polished his whiskers with his left hand.

“And as a Republican you are perhaps in a rather unusual position, so far as this case is concerned.”

“Yes, in a delicate position—like a boy balancing himself on the sharp edge of a fence-rail.”

Guthrie smiled. The homely simile reminded him a little of Abraham Lincoln.

“Still,” he said, “the boy sitting on the sharp edge of the fence-rail can’t stay there forever.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Pike meditatively, “but nobody ever knows which way he’s going to jump, until he jumps.”

“But the boy sooner or later has to decide, and, if he has a friend standing by and looking on, he might shout to him: ‘Look out, I’m coming this way!’ or ‘Look out, I’m going to jump that way!’”

“It isn’t the nature of a boy to do that,” said Mr. Pike, still meditatively polishing his whiskers. “He lets the jump speak for itself. Besides, it would spoil half the fun if he told the other boy beforehand what he was going to do.”

Guthrie gave up the attempt. He had not had much hope that Mr. Pike would declare himself, but he wished to make the trial.

Jimmy Warfield informed him an hour later that General Pelham and Mrs. Pelham had arrived, and were in a suite of rooms at the hotel, but were to dine with the Governor in the evening.

“Of course, you know why they have come,” said Warfield.

“Yes,” replied Guthrie, “they demand that their daughter’s affianced shall be above suspicion even.” Guthrie knew General Pelham, and, at the first opportunity, he called on him and his wife in their rooms.

The General had a great name in the State because of his wealth, his ancestors, his presence, and powerful family connection, and the legends of his military service. He had fought in the Mexican War when but a boy, and had served on the Southern side in the Civil War, where his title of general came to him. Though more than seventy, he was yet vigorous and extremely ruddy. He had long, snow-white hair, fierce white imperial and moustaches, and as he always wore black clothing and, when out of doors, a huge, black slouch hat, his was a figure that could not fail to attract attention. His conversation was usually military and reminiscent. Mrs Pelham was a pale little woman who never said much.

“Ah, Mr. Guthrie,” said the General in a rumbling voice that had in it some of the quality of a roar, “Glad to see you! One always finds men of your calling in the midst of the battle.”

“That’s what we are for, General,” said Guthrie.

“Just like a soldier,” rumbled the General. “Man I knew said at Gettysburg, when they were falling all around us, ‘What fools we are to come here and get ourselves killed!’ ‘Not so,’ I replied, ‘it’s duty; if duty says run your head against a cannon-ball, run it.’ He did it two minutes later. Now, sit down, Mr. Guthrie, and tell us all the news of the capital. The usual trifling lot of boys here, I suppose.”

The General was a prodigious politician, but he merely skirted the edge of politics, delivering now and then sweeping condemnations, carelessly waving away a man or a policy as one would brush off a fly. Also, in his talk, he confined himself to general principles, and usually he defined them “as laid down by Jefferson.” Jefferson was always his court of final resort, and, in a State where the memory of Thomas Jefferson was held in great reverence, the General infallibly crushed his opponent by a quotation from his writings.

“Idling away its time! idling away its time, of course, just as all the Legislatures nowadays do!” continued the General. “A military man would make short work of such business! Not half of these members are fit for the rank of corporal!”

“They are doing the best they can,” said Guthrie mildly.

“Just what they said of the piano-player when they asked the audience not to shoot him,” rumbled the General. “Now, what’s all this I hear about the Speaker, Mr. Carton? Half a dozen men have been pouring tales into my ear about him since I’ve come, but I know that you’ll tell me the facts, Mr. Guthrie.”

Guthrie saw the pale face of Mrs. Pelham flush a little, and her eyes show keen interest. He wondered if this subdued little woman agreed with her husband in all things.

Guthrie was fully aware that the General knew as much as the public knew about the Carton case, and that what he wanted was an opinion. The General would seek to give the impression that the affair was of no personal interest to him, Carton being merely one of “those trifling boys.”

So Guthrie stated quietly his view of the case, letting his confidence in Carton be known, although he took care not to proclaim it too loudly. The General listened, giving utterance to muffled “Hums!” and “Ahs!” but Guthrie glanced once at his pale little wife, and saw a look of gratitude on her face.

Guthrie wondered that the General should speak to him so frankly of Carton in this connection, which was more or less of a family affair; but he surmised it to be a part of the old soldier’s policy to refer to the Speaker as a stranger and to give the public that impression.

The General ran his hand through his shock of white hair and referred to the great men with whom he had been associated intimately, General Scott, and General Taylor, and General Lee, and others who had names in the country’s history. He was really an impressive-looking man, and, when he circled sagely about public questions, there were many who would nudge each other and whisper: “See, the General knows! The old warrior cuts like a sword right to the heart of affairs.”

“I can’t say that I ever liked Carton,” continued the General. “I’ve met the youngster once or twice, casually, quite casually. There’s a lack of good blood there. I understand that his parents were quite common people, almost ‘poor white trash.’”

“But what of that, General?” suddenly said the pale little wife. “The founder of the Pelham family fortunes, the man of great mind and energy, was only an English peasant—he came over in 1634 as you have often told me.”

“Madame! Madame!” rumbled the General, “you show an utter lack of discrimination. William George Pelham, our first ancestor, was not a peasant but an English yeoman. A yeoman, madame, was of quite another type.”

A faint smile passed over the face of Mrs. Pelham, but she said nothing more, and the General resumed the discussion of politics at the capital. The majority of the leaders seemed to him to be too young: boys under thirty should not have places of so much responsibility in the State; all the generals in the Mexican War were much older men—men formed in the school of experience, and hence that struggle was an unbroken chain of triumphs.

Guthrie made no protest against the General’s sweeping assertions, but he knew that a great change was coming over the State nevertheless—a change made necessary by the law of time rather than by any sweeping revolution. It was now a generation since the Civil War, and the atmosphere of that vast conflict which so long enveloped everything was being driven away by the fresher breezes of a new century, now almost at hand. Its great figures were passing, and men born after the firing on Fort Sumter, men to whom those issues were a part of the dead and historic past, were taking the future of the State into their hands, and the old generation resented it.

So Guthrie listened without feeling to the General’s diatribes, although he was a firm believer in the new school. He saw much that was hollow and unconsciously selfish in the old school with its sounding phrases, its great show of manners, and its narrow sectional views; but it was the school of this generation’s fathers, and it should be permitted to pass with dignity, and through ripeness of time, off the stage of affairs.

“Come to see us often, Mr. Guthrie,” said General Pelham, as Guthrie left. “You will always be welcome.”

Guthrie had no doubt either of the General’s sincerity or of his liking for himself, yet he was well aware that General Pelham also would want to keep in touch with one who was likely to know all the news of the capital. But no such consideration seemed to enter into the invitation of Mrs. Pelham when she seconded that of her husband.

When Guthrie returned to the lobby of the hotel, he saw Caius Marcellus Harlow sitting quietly in a corner, and apparently gazing in an absent way through a window at the wintry landscape. It was Mr. Harlow’s first appearance in the capital since the correspondent had found him in the railroad station on his way to the metropolis of the State.

Guthrie, moved by a sudden impulse, approached Mr. Harlow and greeted him.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Guthrie,” said Mr. Harlow quietly. “Sorry I couldn’t talk to you more fully last time I saw you, but I was in a hurry then, and trains won’t wait, you know.”

A thin, dry smile passed over the smooth, shaven face of Caius Marcellus Harlow.

“It was a pity that our conversation was interrupted,” said Guthrie quietly, “but the misfortune is not incurable. We can resume it just where we left off, Mr. Harlow.”

Again Mr. Harlow smiled dryly. He had been used, in the course of many years, to the evasion of questions, and he was not at all embarrassed now.

“If I remember rightly,” he said, “our conversation had passed to the further edge of the realm of fact, and was just about to enter the domain of surmise. So, on the whole, it was well that the train came when it did.”

“But we can turn back into the realm of fact,” said Guthrie. “For instance, it would interest the public greatly to know just who is back of the ‘United.’ I confess that I feel much curiosity on the subject myself.”

“Naturally. Though a mere on-looker, I, too, feel much interest in the question.”

“It is said that you are the agent—that is, the lobbyist of these unknown people,” said Guthrie boldly.

“People will say anything,” replied Mr. Harlow, smiling his thin, dry smile, “and you, as an experienced correspondent, Mr. Guthrie, knowing how to sift the wheat from the chaff, are aware that the amount of wheat is extremely small and the amount of chaff ridiculously large.”

Guthrie looked straight into the eyes of Mr. Harlow, but the calm, smoothly shaven man met his gaze without evasion. Guthrie felt that he might be mistaken; Mr. Harlow looked so candid and innocent, and there was nothing to connect him with the affair save the fact that he seemed to have no business at the capital, but kept a vigilant watch over all legislation.

“So you won’t tell me anything about these people?” said Guthrie, smiling.

Mr. Harlow smiled in return.

“I should like to give you an interesting story for the Times, Mr. Guthrie,” he said, “for—pardon me when I say it—the paper has seemed a little dull to me recently; but I do not know any. Will you accept the will instead of the deed?”

“For the present, because I have to,” replied Guthrie; “but, maybe, I shall come to you some other day for information, Mr. Harlow.”

Guthrie made a mental note as he went away, and it read, “A second failure,” the first being his fruitless interview with Mr. Pike. It annoyed him that he could not grasp the “United” in any way. It was intangible, but nevertheless it was a most vital presence. The incorporators were well-known, yet they were not men of means and power, and, beyond a doubt, they were mere dummies. But Guthrie was not able to get behind these dummies.

He had every inducement to penetrate the secret of the “United:” his sympathy for his friend, Carton, pushed him on, and such a discovery, too, would be important and legitimate news. He resolved to find the truth in this matter, even if it lay at the bottom of a very deep well. But, as the day passed, he made no progress. He confided to Jimmy Warfield his belief that Harlow was the leader, at the capital, of the forces against Carton, and Warfield agreed with him, but he could get no hold. “When I grasp at anything,” said Warfield, “it melts in my hand like smoke.”

Meanwhile, the forces, in Warfield’s expressive phrase, were “lining up for the great struggle.” All the ordinary business was forgotten or hurried over at this critical juncture. The inborn love of a fight came to the front, and Mr. Pursley, persistent, belligerent, and wholly impervious to criticism, made the first move in the campaign, filing in the House, as the law prescribed, a petition for the impeachment of its Speaker, Philip Carton. This petition was verified by the affidavit of Mr. Pursley, and in it he set forth duly that the said Philip Carton had abused his power as Speaker to impede and defeat a bill, incorporating the United Electric, Gas, Power, Light, and Heating Company, a company intended to break the power of various monopolies in the metropolis of the State, and manifestly in the interest of the public. He directly charged that the said Philip Carton was interested in the defeat of this bill; that is, that he was bribed by the old companies to defeat it by the dilatory tactics which a skilful Speaker could adopt.

It was a scene of the deepest solemnity in the House when the petition was presented. All felt the gravity of the occasion and how it was likely to rend the State into factions. Carton himself was in the chair, nearly all the Senators had come in and were on the floor of the House with the Representatives, and the lobbies were crowded. Clarice Ransome, Mary Pelham, and her parents, the Governor’s wife, and Mrs. Dennison, all with eager, intent faces, were there.

It was one of the darkest days of winter. Since morning, the clouds had been rolling up from the southwest, and a raw, bitter wind whistled around the old Capitol. Just as the House met, the snow began to fall slowly and sullenly.

There was a dead silence in the chamber save for an occasional scrape of a foot, because all knew what was coming. Mr. Pursley had stated openly when he would present his petition, and there was no attempt to prevent him, as opposition now would have prejudiced the public against Carton.

Mr. Pursley arose, presented his petition in due form, and it was read by the clerk of the House. Carton never stirred during the reading; he was erect and dignified, but pale. When the reading was finished, he stood up and said:

“Gentlemen of the House, as I, your Speaker, am the person accused in this petition, it is obviously unfit that I should preside over your further proceedings in regard to it. Therefore, I name the gentleman from Barlow County in my place, and I will retire to the floor of the House.”

A slight hum of approval arose. It was confidently expected by his enemies and many of his friends, too, that Carton would name one of his supporters to act in his place because the rulings of the Chair might be of the utmost importance. But Roger Elton, the member from Barlow County, a middle-aged, reserved, self-contained man, was more nearly independent than any other member of the House. Broadly speaking a Democrat, he voted now and then with the Republicans, and he was absolutely a man of his own opinions, who was now serving his sixth consecutive term in the House. Beyond a doubt, he would decide all questions strictly upon their merits, and it was seen by this choice that Carton would take no advantage. The first impression that he made was distinctly favourable.

Carton descended from the dais upon which sits the Speaker’s chair, but his air was not that of a man who is going down. All his pride and haughtiness were with him at this moment, and every line of his figure said, “I shall return to this seat which is mine.” Even old General Pelham, sitting in the lobby between his wife and daughter, was impressed and said, “By George, the fellow carries it well!” But Mary Pelham merely gazed straight before her, and, when Carton glanced once toward the lobby, he did not meet her eyes which looked over and beyond him. Guthrie at this moment wrote in the despatch that he was going to send, “The bearing of the Speaker as he descended from the chair aroused the admiration of all the House and all the spectators; it was that of a man proud of his innocence and confident of vindication.”

Carton walked down the aisle, and took the seat left vacant by the member from Barlow County, from which he faced the new and temporary Speaker, and awaited the next business of the House.

Mr. Elton briefly stated that the House must decide by a majority vote whether an impeachment of its Speaker, Philip Carton, should be ordered. If it should be so decided, he would then appoint a committee to prosecute the same, and the chairman of that committee five days thereafter would lay the case before the Senate, which would try the case. Did the House wish to vote now on the question of impeachment?

Jimmy Warfield sprang up, and was recognised by the Chair.

“Mr. Speaker,” he said, “this is a most extraordinary and sensational action, unparalleled in the history of the State. It is a case that demands the utmost attention and thought of the Legislature. I am sure that neither those who are for Mr. Carton nor those who are against him wish hasty action. I move, therefore, that the vote on the question of impeachment be set for 2 P. M. next Monday.”

There was no opposition by either side to the motion which was seconded and promptly carried, and the House adjourned for the noon recess. Then arose a great buzz of talk, and the spectators from the lobbies poured in upon the floor. Many friends of Carton wished to show their sympathy, and among them were members ready to defy the public which hated corporations and trusts, and which was now identifying Carton with them. Clarice Ransome impulsively gave him both her hands and exclaimed,

“Oh, Mr. Carton, I want to tell you how much I admire your course!”

Guthrie, standing quietly in the background, was grateful to Clarice for this warm-hearted act, but Carton glanced again toward the lobby. Mary Pelham had not come upon the floor of the House, and her father, now with her arm in his as if he were afraid she would escape, was taking her from the building, while Mrs. Pelham meekly followed. Carton was pale already, but he turned a little paler, and Guthrie knew how this act like a desertion struck him to the heart; a word of sympathy then from Mary Pelham would have gone far.

By some unconscious process, an informal division of the House seemed to take place then. Those who favoured Carton flocked around him, and those who were against him crowded out at the far aisle. Guthrie, always observant, noticed how much larger the hostile crowd was than the other, but he was not surprised. He had never doubted that the impeachment would be laid by the House, and the great fight would come before the Senate as a trial court.

He waited until most of the crowd were gone, then walked slowly out, but in the lobby he found the young Governor and his wife waiting.

“You must come to luncheon with us, Mr. Guthrie,” said Lucy Hastings. “Clarice and Mary will be there, of course, and the General and Mrs. Pelham, and—and—”

“And we invited Carton, too,” said the Governor, taking up the continuance for her, “but he would not come.”

Guthrie appreciated the Governor’s generosity in supporting his friend, but, at this moment, Carton’s declination was wise; it would have seemed like a defiance of public opinion.

He walked through the Capitol grounds with the Governor and his wife, the other guests having gone on ahead. The day was still dark and lowering, and the flakes of snow were driven in their faces by the bitter wind.

“What an unpleasant day!” said the Governor, shivering. “I hope it is not an omen for Carton.”

“It’s just the other way,” said Guthrie, cheerfully, as he looked up at the leaden sky. “Bad beginning, good ending.”

Guthrie, partly through instinct and partly through the stimulus of occupation, had trained his faculties of observation to the highest pitch, and he noticed at once that the Governor chose the longest way to his house; he inferred from this that Mr. Hastings wished to ask him questions, and in half a minute he was proved to be right.

“Billy,” said the Governor, going at once to the point, “have you found out what the Republicans are going to do in this affair of Carton’s?”

“No, I have not,” replied Guthrie, “but I would give much to know. I tried to interview Mr. Pike who, is as nearly their leader as they come to having any, but he would not answer a question. He dealt wholly in parables and allegories.”

“Just like one of those mountaineers,” said the Governor. “It would be wrong if the Republicans tried to ‘play politics’ in this, but the temptation must be strong.”

“No doubt of it,” replied Guthrie, “and, if they see a chance to split our party and throw the State into their own hands, it is human nature to do it.”

But Lucy Hastings would not tolerate any such idea; she took only the single-minded view that every man should vote according to his belief in the innocence or guilt of Carton—how it could be anything but innocence, she failed to see.

Guthrie and the Governor did not reply, and in a few moments they were at the executive mansion. It was a quiet luncheon save for the voice of General Pelham. All the others were oppressed by the case against Carton, presented in due form at last, and General Pelham may have been troubled by it too; but he assumed, even to a greater extent than usual, the air of an elderly man of the world who could recount much strenuous experience. His reminiscences of old battlefields and of men who were men flowed in a turgid stream, and the others offered few interruptions because they felt little like conversation. Now and then, Mary Pelham, coming out of her cold reserve, pretended gayety, but it was strained and unnatural.

Obviously, there was a cloud over the luncheon, and Guthrie was not sorry when he left the house, because he, too, felt some constraint—and, when there was constraint, he preferred to be with others rather than with his friends.

He went from the Governor’s house to the telegraph office, wishing to file a portion of his despatch for early sending, and he wrote it at a desk in the corner of the room. The only operator present was the second assistant, a garrulous boy of eighteen, who remarked when Guthrie finished his work:

“Mighty busy day for us, Mr. Guthrie! I tell you a thing like the impeachment of Mr. Carton gives us lots of work to do. The wires will be burnin’ all day and to-night, too. The boss and Tom didn’t get away to dinner until five minutes ago. We’ve been sendin’ columns an’ columns to the evenin’ papers, and lots of private despatches, too.”

“Ah!” said Guthrie absently.

“Yes,” continued the boy, “I’ve been on most of the private ones myself. Sent a long one for Mr. Harlow all the way to New York City just a few minutes before you came in.”

All Guthrie’s abstraction was gone, and, in an instant, he was keenly alive. A long despatch by Caius Marcellus Harlow to New York City, and that, too, right on the heels of the petition against Carton! He looked again at the boy, who was none too clear-witted and obviously anxious to talk about the big day’s work.

A great temptation assailed Guthrie at that moment. He had an instinctive feeling that the telegram of Mr. Harlow’s was sent to the people who were making the fight on Carton, and there was the boy before him—foolish, plastic, ready to be moulded in his hands as he wished. Guthrie had no doubt that, by adroit questionings, he could draw from him every fact of the despatch, and the boy himself remain ignorant that he had told.

It was like a wireless telegram out of the dark, telling where the key to the mystery lay, and Guthrie glanced around the room and then out of the door and into the street; no one was coming, they would be alone there for a while longer.

He thought of all that depended on the solution of this problem—the future of Carton, his personal happiness, the salvation of the State from a great disgrace, and the prevention of a terrible split in the party. He must play the spy, the thief—if one need call it so—and stop these things! After all, the cause of justice would be served.

Guthrie opened his lips to ask the boy a question, but he stopped and shivered. He felt even a physical revolt at this thing, the like of which he had never done before. The words halted at his lips, and, hastily putting on his overcoat, he almost ran out of the room.

He inhaled a deep gulp of the cold, fresh air, and felt better. The day was still dark and lowering, but a hope came to him. Harlow was in communication with people in New York City, and they were the men who were making the fight on Carton. That had been told to him without his seeking; and he had a clue. Something had been gained, and the “something” was not so little.

He walked toward the hotel, and saw Jimmy Warfield, wrapped in a great overcoat, standing on the steps.

“There’s a sensation,” said Warfield. “Senator Pike got a telegram half an hour ago. It came from Sayville; that’s the nearest place on the railroad to his home—it’s fifty miles from there across the mountains. The Pikes and the Dilgers have broken out again—it seems they’ve had an old feud which has been resting for the last two years. Pike’s younger brother, Nathan, has been murdered from ambush, and the Pikes have telegraphed for the Senator to come. He’s the head of the family, and he’ll have to go.”

Guthrie was startled. This was like a projection from an old and bloody past. He was familiar with the story of mountain feuds, but rarely did they involve a State senator.

“Where is Mr. Pike?” he asked.

“In his room, packing up. He never hesitated a minute; it seems that he had been expecting an out break. But I don’t think he’ll talk.”

“It isn’t that,” said Guthrie. “I’m going to the mountains with him.”

He had taken his resolution in an instant. Such an event as this, coming at so critical a juncture and involving the leader of the Republican minority in the Legislature, was an event of great importance, hardly inferior in interest to the fight on Carton. Moreover, the main contest over Carton could not come up for at least ten days yet, and by that time he would be back in the capital.

“Yes,” he repeated, “I’m going with Mr. Pike. You can’t tell what will happen in those mountains.”

“All right, Billy; but whatever you do,” said Warfield, earnestly, “don’t meddle with the feud; you know that so long as you are an outsider you are as safe in the mountains as you are anywhere in the world.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Guthrie replied over his shoulder, as he was already hastening back to the telegraph office.

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