The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1903-01-29

IT HE morning hour in the house was
nearly over, and the galleries
were beginning to fill with a crowd
which betokened expectation of some
thing more exciting than the usual
routine. Members were struggling
in from the cloak-rooms, and the man
who was that day to make the effort
of his life was busy with notes at
his desk.
David Logan tilted himself comfort
ably back in his chair, and looked at
his enemy. He felt the eXultation of
a commanding officer on the eve of a
decisive battle. He knew what elo-
quence would presently be born of
the notes on the desk across the
chamber, but he was secure in the
superior strength of his battalions.
The fight had been a long one, and
only when defeat seemed certain had
chance put into his hands the
weapons of victory. Bribery, trick
cry and consummate skill had been
brought to the service of the great
corporation, whose ingeniously
masked, but wide-eaching, steal he
was fighting.
The Third house had bent every
energy to defeat the right, but David
Logan held evidence, in the face of
which not thrice-bought represen-
tative would dare vote for the meas
ure. Some one had Numbered, and
he had profted. Papers locked in
the safe in the committee-room of
the unimpOrtant committee of which
he was chairman bore names which
had but to be read on the floor of the
house to compel half the men pledged
to the bill to withdraw their support.
No court of justice would refuse such
proof as the dispatch-boX in the safe
held. To-day was the enemy's. To-
morrow would be David Logan's, and
he sat awaiting his time, secure in
the possession of a secret undreamed
of by the opposition.
He reviewed in swift retrospect his
past ten years. At 25 he had been a
telegraph operator on the railroad
in which the man at the desk across
the room held a controlling interest.
Five years later he had been strug-
CLING lawyer, with a taste for politics.
At SO he had entered congress, and
now, in the latter half of his second
term, he saw his way to rising at one
bound to place among his party's
leaders. The scent of battle was in
his nostrils, and he was supremacy
content.
Few in the heterogeneous crowd in
the galleries had even the little in
terest of curiosity in him. He had
furnished little copy" to the press
gallery. To many of the correspond
ents he was unknown, even by sight.
AS he looked up at the well-filled
desks of the newspaper men his eyes
wandered to the front seat outside
the tall wire netting which shut off
the press section from the public gall
lery. 1t was a bench with a lutte
door leading into the aisle, and he
remembered that it was reserved for
newspaper women, but to-day its only
occupant was young woman whom
ne ulu HOb TcueInDtF 10 nave seen
there before. She seemed mere girl
in years, and a fluff of vivid hair
showed in the shadow of her large
hat.
He could see that she was searching
for some face among the members
on the floor, and presently she moved
along the seat to the wire netting,
and talked through it to a young
correspondent. He saw her follow
the direction of the journalists
finger, and her eyes met his squarely.
He glanced away, and with no special
purpose in view strolled into the
cloak-room. When he returned, his
opponent was speaking, but with vic
tory so certain he listened with but
slight attention. He looked up at
the seat beside the press gallery.
The girl with the vivid hair was still
there. She had moved nearer the
aisle, and between her and the press
gallery sat three women. He could
not but see that she was watching
him intently, and he wondered why.
She vas obviously not of the type of
women who sit in the gallery to at
tract the attention of men on the
floor. Her face expressed nothing
but anxiety.
one hand she held one of the
Sa8IN red-leather notebooks which q