CHAPTER XXVI
And there Agincourt fell upon them!
The weekly newspaper from a neighboring county made its appearance with an article on the front page which began as follows:
"We understand that our good neighbors in Blueberry County are being ham-strung by certain interests which want to take money out of the county and put nothing back in the shape of taxes. It is said that underground political forces have been so successful in their blackguard activities that their new court house, badly needed for years, and road improvements are halted for the time being.
"Our people may congratulate themselves on being free from selfish and reactionary interests. It is a stain on the fair name of any community to have the presence of such leeches, etc."
Copies of this journal appeared in numbers. Within twenty-four hours farmers up and down the river and in the far corners of remote townships found marked copies of the paper in mail boxes and did not need rapidly running rumors to establish the identity of the "reactionary interests" as Foraker's Folly. Rumors and grumbling and discontent spread quickly and when Helen Foraker drove the sand roads she was followed by black looks and talked about sourly by men who had hoped to profit at her expense.
Humphrey Bryant had taken advantage of an
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