The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-04

up 10 the capitol tHiOu5h ~
grating of the same kind Of railroad
bridge that crosses Buckwheat creek, in
Arkansas.
And, nevertheless, 1 shall control my
own future" she had said. That was four
years ago. and Shacklett knew that the
home was waiting for him when he reached
1t as surely as the houseboat wintering In
the canal would finally tie up in the warm
sunlight at New Orleans.
Now. for the first time, Shacklett saw
the home and the girl closer to him than
the railroad bridge and the portico of the
Statehouse. He had at least $4,000 in his
pocket that would be his own money unless
Mckee made a bull. Mckee was not al
ways sure, but this 'rake-off'' ought to
make him as certain as a sharpshooter.
Anyhow, those chances had to be taken.
There was no way TO improve them except
to make Mckee over, and that could not
be done in two hours.
Once when Shacklett had run over to
Hamilton to see Mary Stoddard they had
watched lumber boat pushing a raft
through the draw of the long bridge. There
were acres of lumber, and at the foot of
the rapids the force of the current gave it
a momentum of millions Of tons. But pa
thence and the pilot had swung the long
| raft through the narrow opening as deftly
| as the boy guides his little sled on the hill
They had spoken of how proud they
would be after accomplishing the feat that
| the man at the wheel in the high pilot
| house took as a matter of course. Shack
| lett felt the same elevation now that his
| self-sacrifce, and what he thought to be
| the infinitely greater self-sacrifice of the
| girl, in their patient waiting had at last
| given him the thing he sought for most
in life. He never worked without a definite
object. The one thing which he had kept
in view for seven years was to lay the toga
| from a Western State at the feet Of the
| girl in the Senate chamber at Washington.
! To get the toga seemed infinitely easier
than to get the money which would justify
him in marrying the girl. Now he had it
in his pocket, and in two hours 1t would
be his own-unless Mckee failed him.
1t might as well be said for the satisfac-
! ton of the good people who cannot make
the distinction between buying votes in
the Legislature and other equally illegal
methods OF obtaining things that such a
thing as stealing the money Of the Chicago
gang would never have entered Shackletts
mind. If there had been danger of that
Cantwell would not have given it to him,
of course. Both knew that there could be
no real demand made for the return Of the
money given for such a purpose by that
gang, but both knew it was as safe with
Shacklett as with the cashier of the First
National Bank. Shacklett had long since
got past the stage of moralizing about the
purchase of legislators. 1t was five years
before that he was a clerk of committee,
and ever since he had been a close student
of that particular genus. He read the re-
marks about bribery in the papers exactly
| as the rest of us read Tolstoi, and he had
no more intention of living up to the stand
| ard of the civil-service reformers than the
rest OF us have OF living up to the example
| of Jesus of Nazareth. He watched a new
| Legislature come in as the orator watches
| the people ushered into his audience; and
| he looked at the members seriatim as the
| psychologist studies the annals I'm his lab
oratory. but with a little more enjoyment
| In vivisection. 1t was as near right to use
a legislator for ones own purpose as It
was to open an oyster shell or shoot a bear
The whole genus were in Springfield solely
because of the operation of the law of the
/
itics. If they succumbed to the stronger
4 lobbyist the law was still fulfilled. Shack
lett, however, could not have formulated
| all this, for he was little given to intro
| spection; but it paints the Legislature from
his point Of view. Below him his field Of
vision was filed with the Legislature;
above him it could contain only the girl.
And he walked rapidly down under the
/ tx-fI @w,I
he was looking upward at the girl-nearer
than she had ever been to him before.
Shacklett took the elevator to the second
floor. and went directly to the office of the
board Of which Mckee was chief clerk AS
he walked through to the private office of
the secretary with his staid dignity, not so
much as glancing TO either side nor seeming
to notice even Mckee, anybody not ac-
quainted in the third house at Springfield
would have been sure that he was the ex-
ecutive officer of the board. That was a
way that Shacklett had. He never beck
| oned a man to him even by so much as a.
turn of the eyes. When he went past a
friend without speaking that friend fol-
lowed him; 1t saved much suspicion on the
part of the people who had an interest in
| knowing whom he met.
! When Mckee came into the inner office
and shut the door Shacklett was not sit
ting down in the best chair, as usual Con-
| trary to his habit, he was waiting by the
mantel in an attitude of impatient haste
McKee's heart sank as visions of revela-
tions, exposures and warnings fitted before
| his mind at the unusual hurry Of his old
| friend
Say, do you Know where you can get
| one more vote for the Chicago bill?" Shack
lett began at once. "'They need two. If
you can get one I'll dig up the other IL
have to hold him up with a gun. There's
twenty thousand in 1t for vote if you can
get it and 1 get mine. We've got to get
'em for that money; but two is ,too big
contract for me. Can you get one of
| them?''
where's the money!" queried Mckee
"In my pocket. We've got less than two
sc,