Newport daily independent., 1903-01-13

TT HE morning hour in the house was
 nearly over, and the galleries
 were beginning to fill with 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
 commanding officer on the eve of
 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 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-reaching, 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 -..-sssf1yT71dered, and tie asssu f5fs.lssstsz Papers locked ill the safe in the committeeman 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 Dox 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 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 controlling interest. Five years later he had been strug gling lawyer, with a taste for politics. At 33 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. supremely 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-flled 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 bench with a little door leading into the aisle, and he remembered that it was reserved for newspaper women, but to-day it's only occupant was young woman whom he did not remember to have seen there before. She seemed a mere girl in years, and 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 cloalx-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 was obviously not of the type of women who sit in the gallery to att tract the attention of men on the door. Her face expressed nothing Sat anxiety.
 In 1ne hand she held one of the Emau red-leather notebooks which q