into it more deeply than before.
Eleven o'clock still found him in the study with Senator Hanway, albeit
Dorothy was no longer there to make a lovely third. Perhaps for that
reason more politics and news of legislation were discussed by Richard
and Senator Hanway.

The latter gentleman, these days, was in the best of tempers. Nothing
could be more smoothly hopeful than the outlook for that nomination.
Senator Gruff, who was indefatigable for Senator Hanway, told him that
Speaker Frost reported his own State delegation as already in line. Also
the President of the Anaconda, from whom Senator Gruff had letters every
week, described the Hanway sentiment in Anaconda regions as invincible.
The National Convention, in the interests of Senator Hanway and over the
objection of the friends of Governor Obstinate, had been fixed for the
last of May. This was a help; Senator Hanway's forces were organized and
Governor Obstinate's were not. The less space permitted that candidate
and his henchmen, the better for Senator Hanway. As Senator Gruff and
Richard sat together in Senator Hanway's study one morning, the Senator
pointed out on the map a sufficient number of States, and each certain
to send a Hanway delegation, to carry the nomination.

"If the convention were held to-morrow," observed Senator Gruff, "we
would win. The effort now must be to head off encroachments by Governor
Obstinate."

The above came on an occasion when Senator Gruff was in a confidential
mood. Commonly, as a chief Hanway manager, he lay as blandly close and
noncommittal as a clam.

There was the issue of finance, Senator Gruff explained, and that was a
growing source of trouble to Senator Hanway. The latter gentleman's
endeavor had always been to say nothing upon finance, but silence was
becoming difficult. Governor Obstinate was openly and offensively for
gold in a sod-pawing, horn-lowering, threatening way, and just as a
buffalo bull might have been for gold. This settled the standing of
Governor Obstinate in silver communities; they would have none of him.
Those same silver people, however, demanded all the more that Senator
Hanway define his position in the money war. They gave tongue to those
pig-and-poke objections voiced by Senator Coot. It was clamors such as
these, so Senator Gruff told Richard, that made silence a work of
weariness.

"Now I thought," observed Richard, "that Mr. Bayard talked wisely upon
silver and gold the evening of the din