Megory's county seat was located forty miles from Megory, in the extreme east end of the county, where the county ran to a point and the river on the north and the south boundary of the county formed an acute angle; yet the county seat remains at Fairview and the voters keep it there, where no one but a handful of farmers and the few hundred inhabitants of the town reside. When trying to remove the county seat every town in the county jumps into the race, persisting in the contention that their town is the proper place for the county seat and when election comes, the farmers who represent from sixty-five to ninety per cent of the vote in states like Dakota, vote for the town nearest their farm, thinking only of their own selfish interests and forgetting the county's welfare, as the victor must have a majority of all votes cast. Another example of this condition is near where this story is written, on the east bank of the Missouri. It is a place called Keeler, the most God-forsaken place in the world, with only three or four ramshackle buildings and a post office, with little or no country trade, yet this is a county seat, the capital of one of the leading counties of the state; while half a dozen good towns along the line of the C.M. & St. L. road, cart their records and hold court in Keeler, twenty miles from the railroad. Every four years for thirty years the county seat has been elected to stay at Keeler, as no town can get a majority of all votes cast against Keeler, which doesn't even enter the race.

All of these facts had their bearing on Ernest Nicholson in his office at Calias, and had helped to hold Amro together, until Van Neter was called into Calias and into the private office of "King Ernest" as Amro had named him. What passed in that office at this interview is a matter of conjecture, but when Van Neter came out of the office he carried a check for seven thousand, five hundred dollars and Ernest Nicholson became the owner of the two-story, fifty by one hundred foot hotel and lot, Amro's most popular corner. When this news reached Amro pandemonium reigned, business men passed from one place of business to another talking in low tones, and shaking their heads significantly, while old Dad Durpee, nearer maniac than ever before, went the rounds of the town shouting in a high staccato tone: "What do you think of it? What do you think of the ornery, low-down rascal's selling out. Selling out to that band of dirty thieves and town wreckers. By the living gods!" With his arms folded like a tragedian, eyes rolled to the skies and his form reared back until his knees stuck forward, then raising his hand he solemnly swore: "I'll stay in Amro! I'll stay in Amro! I'll stay in Amro," until his voice rose to a hoarse scream. "I'll stay in Amro until the town is deserted to the last d—n building and the last dog is dead." And he did, though I cannot say as to the last dog.