THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



seen this meeting. Mr. Wood did not take 

 readily to Townley's scheme because he be- 

 lieved that in time the Equity's plan of co- 

 operation would prove all that the farmer 

 needed; and he did not take quickly to Town- 

 ley himself because he had been tutored by 

 experience to a low estimate of any man that 

 came to him to talk politics. Such a man 

 could have but one motive, which was for his 

 own advancement; whereas Mr. Wood had 

 long before seen that the North Dakota situa- 

 tion called for men that thought of the cause 

 as everything and themselves as nothing. 

 Nevertheless, he found his visitor interesting 

 — eyes as cold, shrewd, and steady as his own, 

 a long, clean-shaven, aquiline face, a strange, 

 abrupt, pointed, rather explosive manner of 

 talking, but a power of making what he talked 

 of perfectly clear, a power that amounted to 

 a rare gift. Moreover, he was endowed with 

 a persistence that seemed damnable, rugged 

 eloquence, and (what you would scarcely ex- 

 I>ect from his other endowments) a sense of 

 humor, sometimes cynical and sarcastic, but 

 never exercised about any subject except this 

 that overshadowed everything else, the eman- 

 cipation of the farmer. 



For two days Townley held on, obstinate, 

 indefatigable, resourceful. He had not turned 

 this thing over and over in his mind as he 

 walked the lonely roads and prairie trails of 



198 



