There were two separate and distinct sides to the annual carnival of the Knights of Midas. The main object to which the many committees on arrangements addressed themselves was the assembling in Clarkson of as many people as could be collected by assiduous advertising and the granting of special privileges by the railroads. The streets must be filled, and to fill them and keep them filled it was necessary to entertain the masses; and this was done by providing what the committee on publicity and promotion proclaimed to be a monster Pageant of Industry. The spectacle was not tawdry nor ugly. It did not lack touches of real beauty. The gaily decked floats, borne over the street car tracks by trolleys, were like barges from a pageant of the Old World in the long ago, impelled by mysterious forces. From many floats fireworks summoned the heavens to behold the splendor and bravery of the parade. The procession was led by the Knights of Midas, arrayed in yellow robes and wearing helmets which shone with all the effulgence of bright tin. There was a series of floats on which Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation and Manufacturing were embodied and deified in the persons of sundry young women, posed in appropriate attitudes and lifted high on uncertain pedestals for the admiration of the multitude. On other cars men followed strenuously their callings; coopers hammered hoops upon their barrels; a blacksmith, with an infant forge at his command, made the sparks fly from his anvil as his float rumbled by. An enormous steer was held in check by ropes, and surrounded by murderous giants from the abattoirs; Gambrinus smiled down from a proud height of kegs on men that bottled beer below. Many brass bands, including a famous cowboy band from Lone Prairie, and an Indian boy band from a Wyoming reservation, played the newest and most dashing marches of the day. Thus were the thrift, the enterprise, the audacity, and the generosity of the people of Clarkson exemplified.

Such was the first night's entertainment. The crowd which was brought to town to spend its money certainly was not defrauded. The second night it was treated to band concerts, a horse-show and other entertainments, while the Knights of Midas closed the door of their wooden temple upon all but their chosen guests. These were, of course, expected to pay a certain sum for their tickets, and the sum was not small. The Knights of Midas ball was not, it should be said, a cheap affair. Raridan and Saxton had taken a balcony box for the ball and they asked Evelyn's guests to share it with them. Raridan still growled to Saxton over what he called Evelyn's debasement, but he had said nothing more to Evelyn about it.

"Here's to the deification of Jim Wheaton," he sighed, as he and Saxton waited for the young ladies in the Porter drawing-room.

Saxton grinned at him unsympathetically.

"Stop sighing like an air-brake. You will be dancing yourself to death in an hour."

When the two young women came in, Raridan's spirits brightened. Evelyn was, Miss Marshall declared, "perfectly adorable" in her gown; but the young men did not see her. She was to go later with her father.

They were early at the hall, whose bareness had been relieved by a gay show of bunting and flags.

"I will now give you a succinct running account of the first families of this community as they assemble," Raridan announced, when they had settled in their chairs. There were no seats on the main floor, as the ceremonial part of the entertainment was brief, and the greater number of the spectators stood until it was over. An aisle was kept down the middle of the hall and on each side the crowd gossiped, while a band high above played popular airs.

"We're all here," said Raridan, when the band rested. "The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker; also probably some of our cooks. We are the spectators at one of Nero's matinees; the goodly knights are ready for combat, and those who have had practice in the adjacent packing houses have the best chance of winning the victory. There comes Tim Margrave, one of the merriest of them all, full of Arthurian valor and as gentle a knight as ever held lance or bought a city council. And there is the master of our largest and goriest abattoir. That is not a star on his chest, but a diamond pig, rampant on a field of dress-shirt. He used to wear it on his watch-chain, but it was too inconspicuous there—

Miss Marshall was scrutinizing the man indicated through her opera glasses.

"Why, it is a pig!" she declared.

"Of course it is," said Warry, with an aggrieved air. "I hope you don't think I'd fib about it. Now, the girl over there by the window, with the young man with the pompadour hair, is Mabel Margrave, whose father you saw a minute ago. She is looking this way with her lorgnette; but don't flinch; there's only the plain window glass of our rude western commerce in it; she handles it awfully well, though."

"And the man coming in who looks like a statesman?" asked Miss Marshall.

"That's Wilkins, the boy orator of the Range. He palpitates with Ciceronian speech. He's our greatest authority on the demonetization of wampum. The young man who's talking to him is telling him what hot stuff he is, and that the speech he made at Tin Cup, Texas, last week on the 'Inequalities of Taxation' is the warmest little speech that has been made in this country since Patrick Henry died. He's a good thing,—Wilkins. The Indians back on the reservation, where he goes to raise the wolf's mournful howl when white people won't listen to him, call him Young-man-not-afraid-of-his-voice. Our Chinaman calls him Yung Lung. Quite a character, Wilkins."

"And," Miss Warren inquired, "the grave, handsome man, who must be an eminent jurist?"

"He does one's laundry," Raridan replied, "and," looking at his cuffs critically, "he does it rather decently."

"There's another side to this," said Saxton to Miss Warren, while Raridan babbled on to the pretty Virginian. "These people have had a terribly hard time of it. They've been through a panic that would have killed an ordinary community; a good many of the nicest of them have had to begin over again; and it's uphill work. It isn't so funny when we consider that these older people have tried their level best to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and after they'd made a fine beginning the desert repossessed it. There's something splendid in their courage."

"Yes, it's hard for us who live on the outside to appreciate it. And they seem such nice people, too."

"Don't they! They're big-hearted and plucky and generous! Eastern people don't begin to appreciate the people who do their rough work for them."

The other boxes and the gallery had filled, and the main floor was crowded, save where the broad aisle had been maintained down the center from the front door to the stage. A buzz of talk floated over the hall. The band was silent while its leader peered down upon the floor waiting his signal. He turned suddenly and the trumpets broke forth into the notes of a dignified march. All eyes turned to the front of the hall, where the knights, in their robes, preceded by the grand seneschal, bearing his staff of office, were emerging slowly from the outer door into the aisle. When the stage was reached, the procession formed in long lines, facing inward on the steps, making a path through which the governors, who were distinguished by scarlet robes, came attending the person of the king.

"All hail the king!" A crowd of knights in evening dress, who were honorary members of the organization and had no parts in costume, sent up the shout.

"Hail to Midas!"

"Isn't he noble and grand?" shouted Raridan in Miss Marshall's ear. A murmur ran through the hall as Wheaton was recognized; his name was passed to those who did not know him, and everybody applauded. He was really imposing in the robes of his kingship. He walked with a fitting deliberation among his escort. He was conscious of the lights, the applause, the music, and of the fact that he was the center of it all. The cheers were subsiding as the party neared the throne.

"I'll wager he's badly frightened," said Raridan to Saxton.

"Don't you think it," declared Saxton, "he looks as cool as a cucumber."

"Oh, he's cool enough," grumbled Raridan.

"You see what envy will do for a man," remarked Saxton to Miss Marshall. "Mr. Raridan's simply perishing because he isn't there himself. But what's this?"

The king had reached his throne and faced the audience. All the knights bowed low; the king returned the salutation while the audience cheered.

"It's like a comic opera," said Miss Marshall.

The supreme knight advanced and handed Wheaton the scepter and there was renewed applause and cheering.

"Only funnier," said Raridan. "Yell, Saxton, yell!" He rose to his feet and led his end of the house in cheering. "It makes me think of old times at football," he declared, sinking back into his chair with an air of exhaustion, and wiping his face.

The king had seated himself, and expectancy again possessed the hall. The band struck up another air, and a line of girls in filmy, trailing gowns was filing in.

"There are the foolish virgins who didn't fill their lamps," said Raridan; "that's why they have brought bouquets."

"But they ought to have got their gowns at the same place," said Miss Marshall, who was abetting Raridan in his comments. Miss Warren and Saxton, on the other side of her, were taking it all more seriously.

"It's really very pretty and impressive," Miss Warren declared, "and not at all silly as I feared it might be."

"Well, that is very pretty," replied Saxton.

The queen, following her ladies in waiting, had appeared at the door. There was a pause, a murmur, and then a great burst of applause as those who were in the secret identified the queen, and those who were not learned it as Evelyn's name passed from lip to lip. Whatever there was of absurdity in the scene was dispelled by Evelyn's loveliness and dignity. Her white gown intensified her fairness, and her long court train added an illusion of height. She carried her head high, with a serene air that was habitual. The charm that set her apart from other girls was in no wise lost in the mock splendor of this ceremony.

"She's as lovely as a bride," murmured Belle Marshall, so low that only Raridan heard her. Something caught in his throat and he looked steadily down upon the approaching queen and said nothing. The supreme knight descended to escort the queen to the dais. The king came down to meet her and led her to a place beside him, where they turned and faced the applauding crowd.

The grand chamberlain now stepped forward and read the proclamation of the Knights of Midas, announcing that the king had reached their city, and urging upon all subjects the duty of showing strict obedience. He read a formula to which Evelyn and Wheaton made responses. A page stood beside the queen holding a crown, which glittered with false brilliants upon a richly embroidered pillow, and when the king knelt before her, she placed it upon his head. At this there was more cheering and handclapping. Saxton glanced toward Raridan as he beat his own hands together, expecting one of Raridan's gibes at the chamberlain's bombast; but there was a fierce light in Raridan's eyes that Saxton had never seen there before. He was staring before him at Evelyn Porter, as she now sat beside Wheaton on the tawdry throne; his face was white and his lips were set. Saxton was struck with sorrow for him.

There was a stir throughout the hall. The king and queen were descending; the floor manager was already manifesting his authority.

"Let's stay here until the grand march is over," said Raridan. He had partly regained his spirits, and was again pointing out people of interest on the floor below.

"Now wasn't it magnificent?" he demanded.

"Wasn't Evelyn lovely?" exclaimed the girls in a breath.

"We didn't need this circus to prove it, did we?" asked Raridan cynically.

"Aren't there any more exercises—is it all over?" cried Miss Marshall.

"Bless us, no!" replied Raridan.

The evolutions of the grand march were now in progress and they stood watching it.

"They didn't get enough rehearsals for this," said Raridan. "Look at that mix up!" One of the knights had tripped and stumbled over the skirt of his robe. "They ought to behead him for that."

"Mr. Raridan's terribly severe," said Saxton. The king and queen, leading the march, were passing under the box.

"The king really looks scared," remarked Miss Warren.

"Yes; he's rather conscious of his clothes," said Raridan. "His train rattles him." Evelyn glanced up at them and laughed and nodded.

Before the march broke up into dancing they went down from the gallery. On the floor, the older people were resolving themselves into lay figures against the wall. They found Mr. Porter leaning against one of the rude supports of the gallery, wondering whether he might now escape to the retirement of the cloak-room to get his hat and cigar. The young people burst upon him with congratulations.

"You must he dying of pride," exclaimed Miss Marshall.

"Evelyn never looked better," declared Miss Warren. "It was splendid!"

"We are proud to know you, sir," said Raridan, shaking hands.

"I surely came to Clarkson in the right year," said Saxton.

Porter regarded them with the patronizing smile which he kept for those who praised Evelyn to his face.

"The only thing now," he said, "is to get that girl home before daylight."

"Oh, the queen gives her own orders," said Raridan. "You'll never be boss at the Hill any more!" He was bringing up all the unattached men he knew to present them to the visitors. He never forgot any one, and not merely the dÉbutantes of other years, but girls that were voted slow in the brutal court of social opinion, were always sure of rescue at his hands. Evelyn and Wheaton were bearing down upon them; Evelyn, flushed and happy, and Wheaton in a glow from the exercise of the march and a dance with her. There was a fusillade of interjections as many crowded about with praise of the leading actors. It was all breathless and incoherent. The crowd was uncomfortably large, and the hall was hot. Porter found General Whipple and escaped with him to the smoking room. Young men were everywhere writing their names on elaborate dance cards.

"Save a few for us," Raridan pleaded airily as the men he had introduced hovered about Evelyn's guests. He made no effort to speak to Evelyn, who was besieged by a throng that wished to congratulate her or to dance with her. She gave Saxton her fingers through a rift in the crowd and he turned again to find himself deserted. Raridan was dancing with Belle Marshall and Annie Warren nodded to him over the shoulder of a youth who had waltzed her away. While Saxton waited for the quadrilles to which his dancing limitations restricted him, he made a circuit of the room. Mrs. Whipple was holding forth to a group of dowagers but turned from them to him.

"I'm hardly sure of you without Warry, and this is the first time I've seen you alone. Of course, you were looking for me!"

"That's what I came for."

"Please say something more like that. I saw you come in, young man; they are very nice girls, too."

She was trying to remember who had told her that Saxton was stupid.

"How did you like it? This was your first, I think."

"Beautiful! charming! An enchanting entertainment!"

"Is that for you and Warry, too? He always has to approve everything here."

"Oh, I can't speak for him," John answered; "we don't necessarily always agree."

"I'll have to find out later, from him. You and Warry appear to be fast friends, and he talks a great deal. What has he told you about me?"

"He said you were kind to strange young men; but that wasn't information."

"You'll do, I think. Here comes Warry now."

Raridan came along looking for a country girl whose brother he knew, and with whom he had engaged the dance which was now in progress.

"I think she's hiding from me," he complained to Mrs. Whipple, "but the gods are kind; I can talk to you. The general is a generous man." He regarded critically a great bunch of red roses which she held in her lap. "That's why the florist didn't have any for me."

"Oh, these are Evelyn's," explained Mrs. Whipple. "She asked me to keep them for her—the king's gift, you know. I feel highly honored."

"By the king? Impossible! I'll give you something nice to let me drop them into the alley."

"Is it as bad as that? Well, good luck to you!"

He stood with his hands in his pockets looking musingly out over the heads of the dancers. Mrs. Whipple eyed him attentively.

"You know you always tell me all of them," she persisted; but he was following a fair head and a pair of graceful shoulders and ever and anon a laughing face that flashed into sight and then out of range. His rural friend's sister loomed before him, in an attitude of dejection against the wall, and he hastened to her with contrition, and made paradise fly under her feet.

Saxton was doing his best with the square dances, and had finished a quadrille with Evelyn, who had thereafter asked him to sit out a round dance with her; still Raridan did not come near them. He was busy with Evelyn's guests or immolating himself for the benefit of the country wallflowers. Supper was served at midnight in an annex of the hall.

"Here's where we forget to be polite," Raridan announced. "If we die in the struggle I hope you fair young charges will treasure our memories."

The king and queen and the high powers of the knights enjoyed the distinction of sitting at a table where they were served by waiters, while the multitude fought for their food.

"If you lose our seats while we're gone," Raridan warned Miss Marshall and Miss Warren, "you shall have only six olives apiece." He led Saxton in a descent upon an array of long tables at which men were harpooning sandwiches and dipping salad. The successful raiders were rewarded by the waiters with cups of coffee to add to their perils as they bore their plates away. There was a great clatter and buzz in the room. On the platform where the distinguished personages of the carnival sat there was now much laughing.

"Margrave's pretty noisy to-night," observed Raridan, biting into his sandwich, and sweeping the platform with a comprehensive glance.

"You mustn't forget that this is a carnival," replied Saxton. He had followed his friend's eyes and knew that it was not the horse-laugh of Margrave that troubled him, but the vista which disclosed both Wheaton and Evelyn Porter.

"Mr. Raridan's really not so funny as Evelyn said he was," remarked Belle Marshall.

"The truth is," Raridan answered, rallying, "that I'm getting old. Miss Porter remembers only my light-hearted youth."

"Well, let's revive our youth in another food rush," suggested Saxton. They repeated their tactics of a few minutes before, returning with ice-cream, which the waiters were cutting from bricks for supplicants who stood before them in Oliver Twist's favorite attitude.

"Mr. Saxton's a terrible tenderfoot," lamented Raridan, when they returned from the charge. "He was giving your ice-cream, Miss Warren, to an old gentleman, who stood horror-struck in the midst of the carnage."

"You'd think we rehearsed our talk," Saxton objected. "He wants me to tell you that he got the poor old gentleman not only food for all his relations, but took away other people's chairs for him, as well."

"Lying isn't a lost art, after all," said Raridan.

As they returned to the hall they met a crowd of the nobility who were descending from their high seats.

"So sorry to have deserted you all evening," said Evelyn to her girl friends as they came together in a crush at the door; "but the worst is over." She looked up curiously at Raridan, who seemed purposely to have turned away to talk to Captain Wheelock, and was commenting ironically on the management that made such a mob possible. There was only a moment for any interchange, but she was sure now that Raridan was avoiding her and it touched her pride.

"I hope you won't forget our dance, Mr. Saxton," she said, struggling to follow a young man who had come to claim her. Raridan turned again, but hung protectingly over Miss Marshall, whom the noisy Margrave seemed bent on crushing. Raridan had not asked Evelyn to dance, though she had been importuned by every other man she knew, and by a great many others whom she did not know. As the gay music of a waltz carried her down the hall with a proud youngster who had been waiting for her, the lightness of her heart was gone for the moment. She remembered Raridan's curious mood on the night before her friends came, and his unfriendliness to the idea of her taking part in the carnival. She was piqued that he had studiously avoided her to-night. The others must have noticed it. Warry needed discipline; he had been spoilt and she meant to visit punishment upon him. She did not care, she told herself; whether Warry Raridan liked what she did or not.

But something of the glory of the evening had departed. She was really growing tired, and several of the youths who came for dances were told that they must sit them out, and she welcomed their chatter, throwing in her yes and no occasionally merely to impel them on. Wheaton had grown a little afraid of her after the glow of his royal honors had begun to fade. It is often so with players in amateur theatricals, who think they are growing wonderfully well acquainted during rehearsals; but after the performance is concluded, they are surprised to find how easily they slip back to the old footing of casual acquaintance. There was a flutter about Evelyn at the last, when her father made bold to ask her when she would be ready to go.

"The girls have already gone," he said, replying to her question. When they were in the carriage together and were rolling homeward, she gave a sigh of relief.

"Are you glad it's over?" asked her father.

"Yes, I believe I am."

"Well, they all said fine things about you, girl. I guess I've got to be proud of you." This was his way of saying that he was both proud and grateful.

As they reached the entrance to the Hill they passed another carriage just leaving the grounds. Saxton put his head out of the window and called a cheery good night, and Evelyn waved a hand to him.

"It was Warry and Saxton," said Mr. Porter. "I thought they'd stop to talk it over."

Evelyn had thought so too, but she did not say so.