The pontoon would not reach; there was still a wide expanse of water between his candidate and the coveted Speakership.

As matters rested, and every morsel of House patronage disposed of to this hungry one or that, the enemy, Mr.
Hawke--being doubly the enemy for that he was become an open supporter of Governor Obstinate and made no secret that his candidacy for the Speakership was meant to be a step towards making that gentleman President--would still rise victorious in caucus by full forty votes.
Senator Hanway's anxious wits were driven hard.

He had drawn to Mr.
Frost every splinter of power he could command by barter, and thrown in his own State delegation in the House by sheer stress of that machine which he had upreared for his own defense at home.

It was not enough; even the subtraction of two State delegations from the standards of the foe, by the adroit scheme, applied to each delegation, of dragging one of its members forward to be a candidate for Speaker, was not enough.
After ten months of labor, Senator Hanway went over the result and could read nothing therein save failure.

And it was like an icicle through his heart; for aside from what advantage the control of the House might give his own ambitions, he knew beyond question that with the gavel in the fingers of a professed partisan of Governor Obstinate, the latter thick, yet fortunate, individual would occur as the next Presidential candidate of his party so surely as the sun came up on a convention morning.
Senator Hanway was in this valley of gloom when he heard of Mr.Gwynn.
It was Mr.Harley, ever brisk in railway matters, who told him of that gentleman as the Colossus of the Anaconda Airline.
"He holds no offices in the management of the company," explained Mr.
Harley, "but, being millions upon millions a majority shareholder his least word is Anaconda Airline law." Senator Hanway did not have to be told of the influence of railways in the destinies of his country.