ung woman still,
it gave her pleasure to hear them speak of her husband's brilliant
triumph the night before, and to enjoy the atmosphere of success that
enveloped the car.

The run from Chicago to Milwaukee is short, but Harley, despite his
pique--he was young and naturally of a cheerful temperament--might have
joined them before their arrival if his attention had not been attracted
by another group, that body of portly, middle-aged men, heavy with
wealth and respectability, who had silently cast a dark shadow upon the
meeting at Chicago. They were men of power, men whose brief words went
far, and they held in their hands strings that controlled many and vast
interests when they pulled them, and their hands were always on the
strings. They were not like the great, voluble public; they worked, by
choice and by opportunity, in silence and the dark, and their kind has
existed in every rich country from Babylonia to the United States of
America. They were the great financial magnates of Jimmy Grayson's
party, and nothing that he might do could escape their notice and
consideration. It was more than likely that in the course of the
campaign he would feel a great power pressing upon him, and he would not
be able to say who propelled it.

Harley knew some of these men by name; one, the leader of the party, a
massive, red-faced man, was the Honorable Clinton Goodnight, a member of
the Lower House of Congress from New York, but primarily a manufacturer,
a man of many millions; and the younger and slenderer man, with the
delicately trimmed and pointed beard, was Henry Crayon, one of the
shrewdest bankers in Wall Street. These two, at least, he knew by face,
but no trained observer could doubt that the others were of the same
kind.

Although silent and as yet casting only a shadow, Harley felt that
sooner or later these men would cause trouble. He had an intuition that
the campaign before them was going to be the most famous in the Union,
dealing with mighty issues and infused with powerful personalities.
Great changes had occurred in the country in the last few years, its
centre of gravity was shifting, and the election in November would
decide many things. He felt as if all the forces were gathering for a
titanic conflict, and his heart thrilled with the omens and presages. It
was a pleasurable thrill, too, because he was going to be in the thick
of it, right beside the general of one of the great armies.

When they reache