The oblong checkerboard formed by the ninety-two counties of the Hoosier commonwealth seemed to have a fascination for the man from Fraserville.

When Dan found him thus in rapt contemplation Bassett usually turned toward him a little reluctantly and absently.

It was thus that Morton Bassett studied the field, like a careful general outlining his campaigns, with ample data and charts before him.
This was an "off" year politically, or, more accurately, the statutes called for no state election in Indiana.

For every one knows that there is no hour of the day in any year when politics wholly cease from agitating the waters of the Wabash: somewhere some one is always dropping in a pebble to see how far the ripple will widen.

In the torrid first days of September the malfeasance of the treasurer of an Ohio River county afforded the Republican press an opportunity to gloat, the official in question being, of course, a Democrat, and a prominent member of the state committee.
For several days before the exposure Bassett had appeared fitfully at the Whitcomb and in the Boordman Building.