o end to it, when Dan Fowler had
finished. 'Moses' Tyndall had sat staring as the blood drained out of
his sallow face; his jaw gaped, and he half-rose from his chair, then
sank back with a ragged cough, staring at the Senator as if he had
been transformed into a snake. Carl and Terry were beside Dan in a
moment, clearing a way back to the rear chambers, then down the steps
of the building to a cab. Senator Libby intercepted them there, his
face purple with rage, and McKenzie, bristling and indignant. "You've
lost your mind, Dan."

"I have not. I am perfectly sane."

"But _Tyndall_! He'll turn Washington into a grand revival meeting,
he'll--"

"Then we'll cut him down to size. He's _my_ candidate, remember, not
his own. He'll play my game if it pays him well enough. But I want an
Abolitionist administration, and I'm going to get one."

In the cab he stared glumly out the window, his heart racing, his
whole body shaking in reaction now. "You know what it means," he said
to Carl for the tenth time.

"Yes, Dan, I know."

"It means no rejuvenation, for you or for any of us. It means proving
something; to people that they just don't want to believe, and
cramming it down their throats if we have to. It means taking away
their right to keep on living."

"I know all that."

"Carl, if you want out--"

"Yesterday was the time."

"Okay then. We've got work to do."

IX

Up in the offices again, Dan was on the phone immediately. He knew
politics, and people--like the jungle cat knows the whimpering
creatures he stalks. He knew that it was the first impact, the first
jolting blow that would win for them, or lose for them. Everything had
to hit right. He had spent his life working with people, building
friends, building power, banking his resources, investing himself. Now
the time had come to cash in.

Carl and Jean and the others worked with him--a dreadful afternoon and
evening, fighting off newsmen, blocking phone calls, trying to
concentrate in the midst of bedlam. The campaign to elect Tyndall had
to start _now_. They labored to record a work-schedule, listing names,
outlining telegrams, drinking coffee, as Dan swore at his dead cigar
like old times once again, and grinned like a madman as the plans
slowly developed and blossomed out.

Then the phone jangled, and Dan reached out for it. It was that last
small effort that did it. A sledge-hammer blow, from deep within him,
sharp agonizing pain, a driving hun