 CHAPTER VI. When Bannon came on the job on Friday morning at seven o'clock, a group of heavy-eyed men were falling into line at the time-keeper's window. Max was in the office, passing out the checks. His sister was continuing her work of the night before, going over what books and papers were to be found in the desk. Bannon hung up his overcoat and looked through the doorway at the square mass of the elevator that stood out against the sky, like some gigantic unroofed barn. The walls rose nearly eighty feet from the ground, though the length and breadth of the structure made them appear lower, so close to the tops of the posts that were to support the cupola frame that Bannon's eyes spoke of satisfaction. He meant to hide those posts behind the rising walls of cribbing before the day should be gone. He glanced about to the piles of two-inch plank that hid the annex's foundation work. There it lay two hundred thousand feet of it, not very much, to be sure, but enough to keep the men busy for the present, and enough, too, to give a start to the annex bins and walls. Peterson was approaching from the tool-house in Bannon called. How many laborers have you got, Pete? Hardly any. Max there can tell. Max, who had just passed out his last check, now joined them at the doorstep. There's just sixty-two that came for checks, he said, not counting the carpenters. About what I expected, Bannon replied. This night business lays them out. He put his head in at the door. You'd better give checks to any new men that we send to the window, Miss Vogel, but keep the names of the old men, and if they show up in the morning, take them back on the job. Now, boys, to Peterson and Max, pick up the men you see hanging around and send them over. I'll be at the office for a while. We'll push the cribbing on the main house and start right in on the annex bins. There ain't much time to throw around if we're going to eat our Christmas dinner. The two went at once. The hoisting engines were impatiently blowing off steam. New men were appearing every moment, delaying only to answer a few brisk questions and to give their names to Miss Vogel, and then hurrying away to the tool-house, each with his brass check fastened to his coat. When Bannon was at last ready to enter the office, he paused again to look over the ground. The engines were now puffing steadily, and the wrapping of many hammers came through the crisp air. Gings of laborers were swarming over the lumber piles, pitching down the planks, and many gangs were carrying them away and piling them on dollies to be pushed along the plank, runway to the hoist. There was a black fringe of heads between the posts on the top of the elevator, where the carpenters were spiking down the last planks of the walls and bins. Miss Vogel was at work on the ledger when Bannon entered the office. He pushed his hat back on his head and came up beside her. How's it coming out? he asked. Do we know how much we're good for? She looked up smiling. I think so. I'm nearly through. It's a little mixed in some places, but I think everything has been entered. Can you drop it long enough to take a letter or so? Oh, yes. She reached for her notebook, saying with a nod toward the table, the mail is here. Bannon went rapidly through the heap of letters and bills. There's nothing much, he said. You needn't wait for me to open it after this. You'll want to read everything to keep posted. These bills for cribbing go to your brother, you know. There was one chair within the enclosure. He brought it forward and sat down, tipping back against the railing. Well, I guess we may as well go ahead and tell the firm that we're still moving around and drawing our salaries. To McBride and Company, Minneapolis. Gentlemen, cribbing is now going up on elevator and annex. A little over two feet remains to be done on the elevator beneath the distributing floor. The timber is ready for framing the cupola. Two hundred thousand feet of the ledgered cribbing reached here by steamer last night and the balance will be down in a few days. Very truly yours, McBride and Company. That will do for now. Now we'll write to Mr. Brown. No, you needn't bother, though. I'll do that one myself. You might run off the other and I'll sign it. He got up and moved his chair to the table. I don't generally seem able to say just what I want to Mr. Brown unless I write it out. His letter ran. Dear Mr. Brown, we've finally got things going, had to stir them up a little at ledgered. Can you tell me who it is that's got hold of our coattails on this job? There's somebody trying to hold us back all right. Had a little fuss with a red-headed walking delegate last night but fixed him. That hat hasn't come yet. Shall I call up the express company and see what's the matter? Seven and a quarter is my size. Yours, Bannon. He had folded the letter and addressed the envelope when he paused and looked around. The typewritten letter to McBride and Company lay at his elbow. He signed it before he spoke. Ms. Vogel, have you come across any letters or papers about an agreement with the C and SC? No, she replied. There is nothing here about the railroad. Bannon drummed on the table. Then he went to the door and called to a laborer who was leaving the toolhouse. Find Mr. Peterson and ask him if you will please come to the office for a moment. He came slowly back and sat on the corner of the table watching Ms. Vogel as her pencil moved rapidly up column after column. Had quite a time up there in Michigan, he said, those G and M people were after us in earnest. If they'd had their way we'd never have got the cribbing. She looked up. You see, they had told Sloan, he's the man that owns the lumber company and the city of Ledgerd and pretty much all of the lower peninsula, that they hadn't any cars, and he'd just swallowed it down and folded up his napkin. I hadn't got to Ledgerd before I saw a string of empties on a siding that weren't doing a thing but waiting for our cribbing. So I caught a train to Blake City and gave the division superintendent some points on running railroads. He was a nice friendly man. Bannon clasped his hands about one knee and smiled reminiscently. I had him pretty busy there for a while, thinking up lies. He was wondering how he could get ready for the next caller when I came at him and made him wire the general manager of the line. The operator was sitting right outside the door, and when the answer came I just took it in. It gave the whole snap away, clear as you want. Miss Vogel turned on her stool. You took his message? I should say I did. It takes a pretty lively man to crowd me off the end of a wire. He told the superintendent not to give us cars. That was all I wanted to know, so I told him how sorry I was that I couldn't stay till lunch, caught the next train back to Ledgerd and built a fire under Sloane. Miss Vogel was looking out of the window. He said he could not give us cars. She repeated. Bannon smiled. But we didn't need them, he said. I got a barge to come over from Milwaukee, and we loaded her up and started her down. I don't understand, Mr. Bannon. Ledgerd isn't on the lake, and you couldn't get cars. That wasn't very hard. He paused for a step sounded outside the door, and in a moment Peterson had come in. I guess she wanted to talk to me, didn't she, Charlie? Yes, I'm right into the office. It's about this CNSC business. You said you'd had trouble with them before? Oh, no, said Peterson, sitting on the railing and removing his hat with the side glance at Miss Vogel. Not to speak of. There wasn't nothing so bad as last night. What was it? Why, just a little talk when we opened the fence first time. That section boss was around, but I told him how things was, and he didn't seem to have no kick coming as long as we was careful. Bannon had taken up his letter to Brown and was slowly unfolding it and looking it over. When Peterson got to his feet he laid it on the table. Anything else, Charlie? I'm just getting things to go in on the annex. We're going to make her jump, I tell you. I ain't allowing any loafing here. No, Bannon replied. I guess not. He followed the foreman out of doors. Do you remember having any letters, Pete, about our agreement with the CNSC to build over the tracks, from the office or anybody? Peterson brought his brows together and tried to remember. After a moment he slowly shook his head. Nothing, eh? said Bannon. Not that I can think of. Something may have come in while Max was here in the office. I wish you'd ask him. All right. He'll be around my way before long, taking the time. And say, Bannon added, with one foot on the doorstep, you haven't seen anything more of that man Briggs, have you? Peterson shook his head. If you see him hanging around you may as well throw him right off the job. Peterson grinned. I guess he won't show up very fast. Max did him up good last night, when he was blowing off about bringing the delegate around. Bannon had drawn the door too after him when he came out. He was turning back with a hand on the knob when Peterson, who was lingering, said in a low voice, getting out the words awkwardly. Say, Charlie. She's all right, ain't she? Bannon did not reply, and Peterson jerked his thumb toward the office. Max's sister there. I never saw any red hair before that was up to the mark. Ain't she a little upish, though, don't you think? I guess not. Red-haired girls generally is. They've got tempers, too, most of them. It's funny about her looks. She don't look any more like Max than anything. He grinned again. Lord, Max is a peach, though, ain't he? Bannon nodded and re-entered the office. He sat down and added a post-grip to his letter. The CNSC people are trying to make it warm for us about working across their tracks. Can't we have an understanding with them before we get ready to put up the belt gallery? If we don't, we'll have to build a suspension bridge. CB. He sealed the envelope and tossed it to one side. Miss Vogel, he said, pushing his chair back. Didn't you ask me something just now? It was about getting the cribbing across the lake, she replied. I don't see how you did it. Her interest in the work pleased Bannon. It ain't a bad story. You see, the farmers up in that country hate the railroads. It's the tariff rebate, you know. They have to pay more to ship their stuff to market than someplace a thousand miles further off, and I guess the service is pretty bad all around. I was figuring on something like that as soon as I had a look at things. So we got up a poster and had it printed, telling what they all think of the G&M. He paused and his eyes twinkled. I wouldn't mind handing one to that superintendent just for the fun of seeing him when he read it. It told the farmers to come around to Sloan's lumberyard with their wagons. And you carried it across in the wagons? I guess we did. Isn't it a good ways? 18 to 30 miles, according to who you ask. As soon as things got to going, we went after the general manager and gave him a bad half hour. So I shouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the bill coming in by rail any time now. Bannon got up and slowly buttoned his coat. He was looking about the office at the mud-tracked floor in the coated windows and at the hanging shreds of spider-web in the corners and between the rafters overhead. It ain't a very cheerful house to live in all day, is it? he said. I don't know, but we'd better clean house a little. There's not much danger of putting a shine on things that'll hurt your eyes. We ought to be able to get hold of someone that could come in once in a while and stir up the dust. Do you know of any one? There is a woman that comes to our boarding-house. I think they know about her at the hotel. He went to the telephone and called up the hotel. She'll be here this afternoon, he said, as he hung up the receiver. Will she bring her own scrubbing things or are we supposed to have them for her? This is some odd of my line. Miss Vogel was smiling. She'll have her own things, I guess. When she comes, would you like me to start her to work? If you'd just as soon and tell her to make a good job of it. I've got to go out now, and I'll be around off and on during the day. When the noon whistle blew, Bannon and Max were standing near the annex. Already the bins and walls had been raised more than a foot above the foundation, which gave it the appearance of a great checkerboard. Looks like business doesn't it, said Max. He was a little excited, for now there was to be no more delaying until the elevator should stand completed from the working floor to the top, 160 feet above the ground, until engines, conveyors, and scales should be working smoothly in every bin filled with grain. Indeed, nearly everybody on the job had by this time caught the spirit of energy that Bannon had infused into the work. I'll be glad when it gets up far enough to look like something so we can feel that things are really getting on. They're getting on all right, Bannon replied. How soon will we be working on the cupola? Tomorrow. Tomorrow, Max stopped. They had started toward the office and looked at Bannon in amazement. Why, we can't do it, can we? Why not? Bannon pointed toward a cleared space toward the pile of cribbing, where the carpenters had been at work on the heavy timbers. They're all ready for the framing. Max made no reply, but he looked up as they passed the elevator and measured with his eyes the space remaining between the cribbing and the tops of the posts. He had yet to become accustomed to Bannon's methods, but he had seen enough of him to believe that it would be done if Bannon said so. They were halfway to the office when Max said with a touch of embarrassment. How's Hilda going to take hold, Mr. Bannon? First class. Max's eyes sparkled. She can do anything you give her. Her head's as clear as a bell. For the moment Bannon made no reply, but as they paused outside the office door, he said, We'd better make a point of dropping in at the office now and then during the day. Any time you know I'm out on the job and you're up this way, just look in. Max nodded. And nights when we're working overtime there won't be any trouble about your getting off long enough to see your sister home. She won't need to do any night work. They entered the office. Ms. Vogel was standing by the railing gate, buttoning her jacket and waiting for Max. Behind her, bending over the blueprints on the table, stood Peterson, apparently too absorbed to hear the two men come in. Bannon gave him a curious glance, for no blueprints were needed in working on the annex, which was simply a matter of building bins up from the foundation. When Max and his sister had gone, the foreman looked around and said with a show of surprise, Oh, hello, Charlie. Going up to the house? Yes. Peterson's manner was not wholly natural. As they walked across the flats, his conversation was a little forced, and he laughed occasionally at certain occurrences in the morning's work that were not particularly amusing. Bannon did not get back to the office until a half hour after work had commenced for the afternoon. He carried a large bundle under one arm, and in his hand a wooden box with a slot cut in the cover. He found the scrubwoman hard at work on the office floor. The chair and the unused stool were on the table. He looked about with satisfaction. It begins to look better already, he said to Ms. Vogel. You know, we're not going to be able to keep it all clean. There'll be too many coming in. But there's going to be a law passed about tracking mud inside the railing. He opened his bundle and unrolled a doormat, which he had laid in front of the gate. Ms. Vogel was smiling, but Bannon's face was serious. He cut a square piece from the wrapping paper and sitting on the table printed the placard. Wipe your feet or put five cents in the box. Then he nailed both box and placard to the railing and stood back to look at his work. That will do it, he said. She nodded. There's no danger that they won't see it. We had a box down on the New Orleans job, said Bannon. Only that was for swearing. Every time anybody swore he put in a nickel, and then when Saturday came around we'd have ten or fifteen dollars to spend. It didn't stop the swearing, then. Oh yes, everybody was broke a day or so after payday, and for a few days every week it was the best crowd you ever saw. But we won't spend this money that way. I guess we'll let you decide what to do with it. Hour by hour the piles of cribbing dwindled, and on the elevator the distance from bin walls to post tops grew shorter. Before five o'clock the last planks were spiked home on the walls and bins in the northwest corner. A few hours' work in the morning would bring the rest of the house to the same level, and then work could commence on the distributing floor and on the frame of the cupola. Before the middle of the afternoon he had started two teams of horses dragging the cupola timbers, which had been cut ready for framing, to the foot of the hoist. By ten o'clock in the morning Bannon figured the engine would be lifting timbers instead of bundles of cribbing. There was a chill wind up there on the top of the elevator coming across the flats out of the glowing sunset, but Bannon let his coat flap open as he gave a hand now and then to help the men. He liked to feel the wind tugging at sleeves and cap, and he leaned against it. Bear throated and bear-handed. Bear headed, too. He would have been had not a carpenter, rods away on the cribbing, put out a hand to catch his cap as it tried to whirl past on a gust. The river wound away toward the lake, touched with the color of the sky, to lose itself half a mile among the straggling rows of factories and rolling mills. From the splinted crimson of the western sky to the broken horizon-line of South Chicago, whose buildings hid Lake Michigan, the air was crisp and clear, but on the north over the dim shops and blocks of houses that grew closer together as the eyes went on, until spires and towers and gray walls were masked in confusion, hung a veil of smoke, like a black cloud, spreading away farther than I could see. This was Chicago. Bannon climbed to the ground and took a last look about the work before going to the office. The annex was growing slowly but surely, and Peterson, coatless and hatless as usual, with sleeves rolled up, was at work with the men, swinging a hammer here, impatiently shouldering a bundle of planks there, and Bannon saw more clearly what he had known before, that Peterson was a good man when kept within his limitations. Certainly the annex could not have been better started. When Bannon entered the office, Ms. Vogel handed him a sheet of paper. He came in through the gate and stood at the desk beside her to have the light of the lamp. It was a balanced sheet, giving the results of her examination of the books. All right, eh? he said. A glance had been enough to show him that hereafter there would be no confusion in the books. The cashier of a metropolitan bank could not have issued a more business-like statement. He tossed it on the desk, saying, you might file it. Then he took time to look about the office. It was clean as black and splintered planks could be. Even the ceiling had been attacked and every trace of cobweb removed. Well, he said, this is business, and we'll keep it this way, too. She had faced about on the stool and was looking at him with twinkle in her eye. Yes, she said, evidently trying not to laugh. We'll try to. He was not looking at her as she spoke, but when, a moment later, the laugh broke away from her, he turned. She was looking at his feet. He glanced down and saw a row of black footprints leading from the desk to where he stood, one of them squarely in the center of the new mat. He gazed ruefully. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out a quarter, dropping it in the box. Well, he said, wiping his feet, but the whistle just then gave a long blast, and he did not finish the sentence. After supper, Bannon and Peterson sat in the room they occupied together. In the walk home, in Deryon's supper, there had been the same sullen manner about the younger man that Bannon had observed at noon. Half a day was a long time for Peterson to keep to himself something that bothered him, and before the close of dinner he had begun working the talk around. Now after a long silence that Bannon filled with sharpening pencils, he said, Some people think a lot of themselves, don't they, Charlie? Bannon looked up from his pencils. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. She seems to think she's better in Max and you and me and everybody. I thought she looked pretty civil, and I didn't say a word she needed to get stuck up about. Bannon asked no questions. After waiting to give him an opportunity, Peterson went on. There's going to be a picnic Sunday of the iron workers up at Sharp Shooters Park. I know a fellow that has tickets. It'd be just as quiet as anywhere, and speeches, you know. I don't see that she's any better than a lot of the girls that'll be there. Do you mean to say you asked her to go, Bannon asked? Yes, and she— Bannon had turned away to strop his razor on his hand, and Peterson, after one or two attempts to begin the story, let the subject drop. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Calumet K. by Merwin Webster This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7 Bannon had the knack of commanding men. He knew the difference between an isolated, or better perhaps an insulated, man, and the same man in a crowd. Without knowing how he did it, he could nevertheless distinguish between the signs of temporary ill-feeling among the men, and the perhaps less apparent danger signal that meant serious mischief. Since his first day on the job, the attitude of the men had worried him a little. There was something in the air he did not like. Peterson, accustomed to handling smaller bodies of men, had made the natural mistake of driving the very large force employed on the elevator with much too loose a reign. The men were still further demoralized by the episode with the walking delegate Grady on Thursday night. Bannon knew too much to attempt halfway measures, so he waited for a case of insubordination serious enough to call for severe treatment. When he happened into the office about the middle of Saturday morning, Miss Vogel handed him two letters addressed to him personally. One was from Browne, the last paragraph of it as follows. Young Page has told McBride in so many words what we've all been guessing about, that is, that they are fighting to break the corner in December wheat. They have a tremendous short line on the Chicago Board and they mean to deliver it. Twenty-two hundred thousand has got to be in the bins here at Calumet before the first of January, unless the day of judgment happens along before then. Never mind what it costs you, Browne. P.S. McBride has got down an atlas and is trying to figure out how you got that cribbing to the lake. I told him you put the barge on rollers and towed it up to Ledgird with a traction engine. The letter from Sloan was to the effect that twelve cars were at that moment on the yard siding, loading with cribbing and that all of it, something more than eighteen hundred thousand feet, would probably be in Chicago within a week. A note was scribbled on their margin in Sloan's handwriting. Those fool farmers are still coming in expecting a job. One is out in the yard now, came clear from victory, have had to send out a man to take down the posters. That's just like a farmer, Bannon said to Miss Vogel. Time don't count with him. Tomorrow morning or two weeks from next Tuesday. He can't see the difference. I suppose if one of those posters on an inconspicuous tree happens to be overlooked, that some old fellow will come driving in next Fourth of July. He buttoned his coat as though going out, but stood looking at her thoughtfully a while. All the same, he said, I'd like to be that way myself. Never do anything till tomorrow. I'm going to turn farmer some day. Once I get this job done, I'd like to see the man who can hurry me. I'll say to McBride, I'm willing to work on nice quiet, easy little jobs that never have to be finished. I'll want to sit at the desk and whittle most of the time, but if you ever try to put me on a rush job, I'll quit and buy a small farm. I could make the laziest farmer in twelve states. Well, I've got to go out on the job. An elevator is simply a big grain warehouse, and of course the bins where the grain is kept occupy most of the building, but for handling the grain more than bin room is necessary. Beneath the bins is what is called the working-story, whereas the machinery for unloading cars and for lifting the grain. The cupola, which Bannon was about to frame, is a five-story building perched atop the bins. It contains the appliances for weighing the grain and distributing it. When Bannon climbed out on top of the bins, he found the carpenters partially flooring over the area, preparatory to putting in place the framework of the cupola. Below them in the bins, like bees and a honeycomb, laborers were taking down the scaffolding which had served in building their walls. At the south side of the building, a group of laborers under one of the foremen was rigging what is known as a boom hoist, which was to lift the timbers for framing the cupola. While Bannon stood watching the carpenters, one of them saw it off the end of a plank and dropped it down into the bin. There was a low laugh, and one or two of the men glanced uneasily at Bannon. He spoke to the offender. Don't do that again if you want to stay on this job. You know there are men at work down there. Then, look here, he called, getting the attention of all the carpenters. Every man that drops anything into the bins gets docked in hours' pay. If he does it twice, he leaves the job just as quick as he can make out a time check. I want you to be careful. He was picking his way over to the group of men about the hoisting pole when he heard another general laugh from the carpenters. Turning back, he saw them all looking at a fellow named Riley, who was trying to suppress a smile, was peering with mock concern down into the dark bin. My hammer slipped. Bannon heard him say and allowed aside to the men nearest him. Then with a laugh, accidents will happen. Bannon almost smiled himself for the man had played right into his hand. He had, in the four days since he took command, already become aware of Riley, and had put him down for the sort ambitious to rise rather in the organization of his union than in his trade. I guess we won't take the trouble to dock you, he said. Go to the office and get your time and be quick about it, too. Did you mean me? the man asked impudently. But Bannon, without a heeding, went over to the hoist. Presently a rough hand fell on his shoulder. Say, demanded Riley again, did you mean me? No doubt of that. Go and get your time. I guess not, said the man, not me. My hammer just slipped. How are you going to prove I meant to do it? I'm not. I'm going to fire you. You ain't laid off, you understand, you're fired. If you ever come back, I'll have you kicked off the place. You don't dare fire me, the man said, coming nearer. You'll have to take me back to-morrow. I'm through talking with you, said Bannon, still quietly. The faster you can light out of here, the better. We'll see about that. You can't come it on the union that way. Then, without any preparatory gesture, whatever, Bannon knocked him down. The man seemed to fairly rebound from the floor. He rushed at the boss, but before he came within striking distance, Bannon whipped out a revolver and dropped at level with Riley's face. I've talked to you, he said slowly, his eye blazing along the barrel, and I've knocked you down, but the man staggered back, then walked away very pale but muttering. Bannon shoved back the revolver into his hip pocket. It's all right, boys, he said, nothing to get excited about. He walked to the edge and looked over. We can't wait to pick it up a stick at a time, he said. I'll tell him to load four or five on each lorry. Then you can lift the whole bunch. We run some chances of a spill or a break that way, said the foreman. I know it, answered Bannon, Riley. That's the kind of chances we'll have to run for the next two months. Descending to the ground, he gave the same order to the men below. Then he sent word to Peterson and Vogel that he wished to see them in the office. He wiped his feet on the mat, glancing at Hilda as he did so. But she was hard at work and did not look up. He took the one unoccupied chair and placed it where he could watch the burnished light in her red hair. Presently she turned toward him. Did you want something? She asked. Excuse me. I guess I—I— In the midst of his embarrassment, Max and Pete came in. I've got a couple of letters I want to talk over with you, boys. He said, That's why I sent for you. Pete laughed and vaulted to a seat on the drafting table. I was most afraid to come, he said. I heard you drawed a gun on that fellow Riley. What was he doing to make you mad? Nothing much. Well, I'm glad you fired him. He's made trouble right along. How did it happen you had a gun with you? Do you always carry one? Haven't been without one on a job since I've worked for the old man. Well, said Pete, straightening up. I've never so much as owned one, and I never want to. I don't like him. If my fists ain't good enough to take care of me against any fellow that comes along, why, he's welcome to lick me. That's all. Hilda glanced at him, and for a moment her eyes rested on his figure. There was not a line of it, but showed grace and strength and a magnificent confidence. Then, as if for the contrast, she looked at Bannon. He had been watching her all the while, and he seemed to guess her thought. That's all right, he said in answer to Peterson, when it's just you and him and a fellow to hold your coats. But it don't always begin that way. I've been in places where things got pretty miscellaneous sometimes. But I never had a man come up and say, Mr. Bannon, I'm going to lick you any time when you're ready. There's generally from three to thirty, and they all try to get on your back. Peterson laughed rather menacingly. I was in an attendant in the insane ward of the Massachusetts General Hospital for a while, and one time when I wasn't looking for it, twenty-four of those lunatics all jumped on me at once. They got me on the floor and most killed me. He paused as though there was nothing more to tell. Don't stop there, said Max. Why, he went on, I crawled along the floor till I got to a chair, and I just knocked him around with that till they was quiet. Bannon looked at his watch. Then he took Brown's letter from his pocket. It's from the office, he said. We've got to have the bins full before New Year's Day. Got to, exclaimed Pete. I don't see it that way. We can't do it. Can or can't, that don't interest McBride a bit. He says it's got to be done, and it has. Why, he can't expect us to do it. He didn't say anything about January first to me. I didn't know it was a rush job. And then we played in hard lock, too, before you came. That cribbing being tied up, for instance. He certainly can't blame us if— That's got nothing to do with it, Bannon cut in shortly. He don't pay us to make excuses. He pays us to do as we're told. When I have to begin explaining to McBride why it can't be done, I'll send my resignation in a long, in or separate envelope, and go to peddling a cure for quorns. What we want to talk about is how we're going to do it. Peterson flushed, but said nothing, and Bannon went out. Now here's what we've got to do. We've got to frame the cupola, and put on the roof, and sheath the entire house with galvanized iron. We've got to finish the spouting house, and sheath that. We've got to build the belt gallery, and we'll have no end of a time doing it if the CNSC is still looking for trouble. Then there's all the machinery to erect and the millwright work to do. And we've got to build the annex. I thought you was going to forget that, said Pete. That's the worst job of all. No, it ain't. It's the easiest. It'll build itself. It's just a case of two and two makes four. All you've got to do is spike down two inch planks till it's done, and then clap on some sort of a roof. There's no machinery, no detail, just straight work. It's just a question of having the lumber to do it with. And we've got it now. It's the little work that can rise net with you. There is more than a million little things that any man ought to do in half an hour. But if one of them goes wrong, it may hold you up for all day. Now I figure the business this way. He took a memorandum from his pocket and began reading. There was very little guesswork about it, and he had sat down as nearly as possible the amount of labor involved in each separate piece of construction and the number of men who could work on it at once. Allowing for the different kinds of work that could be done simultaneously, he made out a total of one hundred and twenty days. Well, that's all right, I guess, said Pete. But you see, that takes us way along into next year sometime. About March 1st, said Max. You haven't divided it by three yet, said Bannon. We'll get three eight-hour days into every twenty-four hours, and twenty-one of them into every week. Why, that's better than we need to do, said Pete after a moment. That gets us about two weeks ahead of time. Did you ever get through when you thought you would, Bannon demanded? I never did. Don't you know that you always get hit by something he ain't looking for? I'm figuring in our hard luck margin, that's all. There are some things I am looking for, too. We'll have a strike here before we get through. Oh, I guess not, said Pete easily. You're still thinking of Riley, aren't you? And for another thing, Page and Company are likely to spring something on us at the last moment. What sort of thing? If I knew, I'd go ahead and build it now, but I don't. Are you going to work three gangs? Who will look after them? One of us has got to stay up nights, I guess, said Bannon. We'll have to get a couple of boys to help Max keep time. It may take us a day or two to get the good men divided up in the thing to running properly, but we ought to be going full blast by the first of the week. He arose and buttoned his coat. You two know the men better than I do. I wish you'd go through the payroll and pick out the best men and find out if you can who will work nights at regular night wages. Peterson came out of the office with him. I suppose you'll put me in the night gang, he said. I haven't decided yet what I'll do. When I came by the main hoist, Pete went on. They was picking up four and five sticks at once. I stopped them and they said it was your orders. You'll come to smash that way, sure as a gun. Not if they don't take more than I told them to, and if they're careful. They have to do it to keep up with the carpenters. Well, it's running a big risk, that's all. I don't like it. My God, don't I know it's a risk? Do you suppose I like it? We've got something to do, and we've got to do it somehow. Pete laughed uneasily. I told them not to pick up more than two sticks at a time, till they heard from me. I think, said Bannon, with a look that was new to Pete, I think you'd better go as fast as you can and tell them to go on as they were when you found them. Late on Tuesday afternoon the hoist broke. It was not easy to get from the men a clear account of the accident. The boss of the gang denied that he had carried more of a load than Bannon had authorized, but some of the talk among the men indicated the contrary. Only one man was injured and he not fatally, a piece of almost miraculous good luck. Some scaffolding was torn down and a couple of timbers badly sprung, but the total damage was really slight. Bannon in person superintended rigging the new hoist. It was ready for work within two hours after the accident. She's guide a little better than the other was, I think, said Bannon to the foreman. You won't have any more trouble. Go ahead. How about the load? Carry the same load as before. You weren't any more than keeping up. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Calumet K. by Merwin Webster. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8. Five minutes after the noon whistle blew on Saturday, every carpenter and laborer knew that Bannon had pulled a gun on Riley. Those who heard it last heard more than that, for when the story had passed through a few hands it was bigger and it took longer to tell, and every man during the afternoon kept his eyes more closely on his work. Some were angry, but these dropped with muttering into sullenness. The majority were relieved, for a good workman is sure of himself under a firm than under a slack hand. But all were cowed, and Bannon, when after dinner he looked over the work, knew more about all of them and their feelings perhaps than they knew themselves. He knew too that the incident might in the long run make trouble, but trouble was likely in any case, and it was better to meet it after he had established his authority than while discipline was at loose ends. But Hilda and Max were disappointed. They were in the habit of talking over the incidents and problems of the day every night after supper, and while Hilda, as Max used to say, had a mind of her own, she had fallen into the habit of seeing things much as Max saw them. Max had from the start admired, in his boyish way, Peterson's big muscles and his easy good nature. He had been the first to catch the new spirit that Bannon had got into the work, but it was more the outward activity that he could understand and admire than Bannon's finer achievements in organization. Like Hilda he did not see the difference between dropping a hammer down a bin and overloading a hoist. Bannon's distinction between running risks in order to push the work and using caution in minor matters was not recognized in their talks, and as Bannon was not in the habit of giving his reasons, the misunderstanding grew. But more than all Max felt, and in a way Hilda felt too, that Peterson would never have found it necessary to use a revolver. His fists would have been enough for a dozen Ryleys. Max did not tell Hilda about all the conversations he and Peterson had had during the last week, for they were confidential. Peterson had never been without a confidant, and though he still shared a room with Bannon, he could not talk his mind out with him. Max, who to Bannon was merely an unusually capable lumber-checker, was to Peterson a friend and advisor. And though Max tried to defend Bannon when Peterson fell into criticism of the way the work was going, he was influenced by it. During the few days after the accident, Hilda was so deeply distressed about the injured man that Max finally went to see him. He's pretty well taken care of, he said, when he returned. There's some ribs broken, he says, and a little fever, but it ain't serious. He's got a couple of sneaking little lawyers around trying to get him to sue for damages, but I don't think he'll do it. The company's giving him full pay and all his doctor's bills. Nearly every evening after that, Max took him some little delicacy. Hilda made him promise that he would not tell who sent them. Bannon had quickly caught to the changed attitude toward him, and for several days kept his own counsel, but one morning after dictating some letters to Hilda, he lingered. How's our fund getting on, he said, smiling. Have you looked lately? No, she said, I haven't. He leaned over the railing and opened the box. It's coming slow, he said, shaking his head. Are you sure nobody's been getting away from us? Hilda was seated before the typewriter. She turned partly around without taking her fingers from the keys. I don't know, she said quietly. I haven't been watching it. We'll have to be stricter about it, said Bannon. These fellows have got to understand that rules are rules. He spoke with a little laugh, but the remark was unfortunate. The only men who came within the railing were Max and Peterson. I may have forgotten myself, said she. That won't do, you know. I don't know, but what I can let you off this time, I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Vocal. I'll make a new rule that you can come in without wiping your feet if you'll hand in a written excuse. That's the way they did things when I went to school. He turned to go, then hesitated again. You haven't been out on the job yet, have you? No, I haven't. I rather think you'd like it. It's pretty work, now that we're framing the cupola. If you say so, I'll fix it for you to go up to the distributing floor this afternoon. She looked back at the machine. The view ain't bad, he went on, when you get up there, and you can see down into Indiana and all around. You could see all Chicago, too, if it wasn't for the smoke. There was a moment's silence. Why, yes, Mr. Bannon, said she, I'd like to go very much. All right, he replied, his smile returning. I'll guarantee to get you up there somehow if I have to build a stairway. Ninety feet's pretty high, you know. When Bannon reached the elevator, he stood for a moment in the well at the west end of the structure. This well, or stairway bin, sixteen by thirty-two feet, and opened from the ground to the distributing floor, occupied the space of two bins. It was here that the stairway would be, and the passenger elevator and the rope drive for the transmission of power from the working to the distributing floor. The stairway was barely indicated by rude landings, for the present a series of eight ladders zigzagged up from landing to landing. Bannon began climbing. Halfway up he met Max, who was coming down, timebook in hand. Look here, Max, he said. We're going to have visitors this afternoon. If you've got a little extra time, I'd like to have you help get things ready. All right, Max replied. I'm not crowded very hard today. I've asked your sister to come up and see the framing. Max glanced down between the loose boards on the landing. I don't know, he said slowly. I don't believe she could climb up here very well. She won't have to. I'm going to put in a passenger elevator and carry her up as grand as the Palmer House. You put in your odd minutes between now and three o'clock making a box that's big and strong enough. Max grinned. Say that's all right. She'll like that. I can do most of it at noon. Bannon nodded and went on up the ladders. At the distributing floor he looked about for a long timber and had the laborers lay it across the well opening. The ladders and landings occupied only about a third of the space. The rest was open, a clear drop of eighty feet. At noon he found Max in an open space behind the office, screwing iron rings into the corners of a stout box. Max glanced up and laughed. Amid Hilden promised not to come out here, he said. He waved his hand toward the back wall of the office. Bannon saw that he had nailed strips over the larger cracks and knot holes. She was peeking, but I shut that off before I had got very far along. I don't think she saw what it was. I only had part of the frame done. She'll be coming out in a minute, said Bannon. I know, I thought of that. Max threw an armful of burlap sacking over the box. That'll cover it up enough. I guess it's time to quit anyway if I'm going to get any dinner. There's a little square of carpet up to the house that I'm going to get for the bottom, and we can run pieces of half inch rope from the rings up to a hook and sling it right on the hoist. It's not going on the hoist, said Bannon. I wouldn't stop the timbers for Mr. McBride himself. When you go back you'll see a timber on the top of the wall. I'd like you to sling a block under it and run an inch and a quarter rope through. We'll haul it up from below. What power! Manpower! All right, Mr. Bannon, I'll see to it. There's Hilda now. He called to her to wait while he got his coat, and then the two disappeared across the tracks. Hilda had bowed to Bannon, but without the smile and the nod that he liked. He looked after her as if he would follow, but he changed his mind and waited a few minutes. The elevator was ready soon after the afternoon's work had commenced. Bannon found time between two and three o'clock to inspect the tackle. He picked up an end of rope and lashed the cross-timber down securely. Then he went down the ladders and found Max, who had brought the carpet for the box, and was looking over his work. The rope led up to the top of the well through a pulley and then back to the working floor and through another pulley so that the box could be hoisted from below. It's all right, said Max. It'll run up as smooth as you want. You'd better go for your sister then, Bannon replied. Max hesitated. You meant for me to bring her? Yes, I guess you might as well. Bannon stood looking after Max as he walked along the railroad track out into the open air. Then he glanced up between the smooth walls of cripping that seemed to draw closer and closer together until they ended far overhead in a rectangle of blue sky. The beam across the top was a black line against the light. The rope hanging from it swayed lazily. He walked around the box, examining the rings in the four corner ropes and testing them. Hilda was laughing when she came with Max along the track. Bannon could not see her at first for the intervening rows of timbers that supported the bins. Then she came into view through an opening between two vents of timber beyond a heap of rubbish that had been thrown at one side of the track. She was trying to walk on the rail, one arm thrown out to balance, the other resting across Max's shoulders. Her jacket was buttoned snugly up to the chin and there was a fresh color in her face. Bannon had called in three laborers to man the rope. They stood at one side, awaiting the order to haul up. He found a block of wood and set it against the box for a step. This way, Miss Vogel, he called, the elevator starts in a minute. You came pretty near being late. Am I going to get in that, she asked, and looked up with a little gasp along the dwindling rope. Here, said Max, don't you say nothing against that elevator, I call it pretty grand. She stood on the block holding to one of the ropes and looked alternately into the box and up to the narrow sky above them. It's awfully high, she said. Is that little stick up there all that's going to hold me up? That little stick is ten by twelve, Max replied. It would hold more than a dozen of you. She laughed, but still hesitated. She lowered her eyes and looked about the great dim space of the working story with its long aisles and its solid masses of timber. Suddenly she turned to Bannon, who was standing at her side, waiting to give her a hand. Oh, Mr. Bannon, she said, are you sure it's strong enough? It doesn't look safe. I think it's safe, he replied quietly. He vaulted into the box and signaled to the laborers. Hilda stepped back off the block as he went up, perhaps a third of the way, and then came down. She said nothing but stepped on the block. Well, shall I get in? She asked, laughing a little, but not looking at Bannon. Here, said Bannon, give us each a hand. A little jump will do it. Max, here I'll go along the ladders and steady you if you swing too much. Wait a minute, though. He hurried out of doors and returned for the light line, one end of which was made fast to the box, the other he gave to Max. Now, he said, you can guide us as nice as walking upstairs. They started up, Hilda sitting in the box and holding tightly to the sides, Max climbing the ladders with the end of the line about his wrist. Bannon joined the laborers and kept a hand on the hoisting rope. You'd better not look down, he called after her. She laughed and shook her head. Bannon waited until they had reached the top, and Max had lifted her out on the last landing. Then, at Max's shout, he made the rope fast and followed up the ladders. He found them waiting for him near the top of the well. We might as well sit down, he said. He led the way to a timber a few steps away. Well, Miss Vogel, how do you like it? She was looking eagerly about. At the frame, a great skeleton of new timber, some of it still holding so much of the water of river and milyard that it glistened in the sunlight. At the moving groups of men, the figure of Peterson standing out above the others on a high girder, his arms knotted and his neck bare, though the day was not warm. At the straining hoist, trembling with each new load that came swinging from somewhere below, to be hustled off to its place, stick by stick, and then out into the west where the November sun was dropping, and around at the hazy flats on the strip of a river. She drew in her breath quickly and looked up at Bannon with a nervous little gesture. I like it, she said finally, after a long silence, during which they had watched a big stick go up on one of the small hoists, to be swung into place and driven home on the dowel pins by Peterson's sledge. Isn't Pete a Hummer, said Max? I never yet saw him take a hold of a thing that was too much for him. Neither Hilda nor Bannon replied to this, and there was another silence. Would you like to walk around and see things closer, too? Bannon asked, turning to Miss Vogel. I wouldn't mind, it's rather cold sitting still. He led the way along one side of the structure, guiding her carefully in places where the flooring was not yet secure. I'm glad you came up, he said. A good many people think there's nothing in this kind of work but just sawing wood and making money for somebody up in Minneapolis. But it isn't that way, it's pretty and sometimes it's exciting, and things happen every little while that are interesting enough to tell to anybody, if people only knew it. I'll have you come up a little later when we get the house built and the machinery coming in. That's when we'll have things really moving. There'll be some fun putting up the belt gallery, too. That'll be over here on the other side. He turned to lead the way across the floor to the north side of the building. They had stopped a little way from the boom hoist and she was standing motionless, watching as the boom swung out and the rope rattling to the ground. There was the purring of the engine far below, the straining of the ropes and the creaking of the blocks as the heavy load came slowly up. Gings of men were waiting to take the timbers the moment they reached the floor. The foreman of the hoist gang was leaning out over the edge, looking down and shouting orders. Hilda turned with a little start and saw that Bannon was waiting for her. Following him she picked her way between piles of planks and timber and between groups of laborers and carpenters to the other side. Now they could look down at the four tracks of the sea and estacy, the unfinished spouting house on the wharf and the river. Here's where the belt gallery will go, he said pointing downward, right over the tracks to the spouting house. They carry the grain on endless belts, you know. Doesn't it ever fall off? Not a kernel. It's pretty to watch. When she gets to running we'll come up someday and look at it. They walked slowly back toward the well. Before they reached it, Peterson and Max joined them. Peterson had rolled down his sleeves and put on his coat. You ain't going down now, are you? He said. We'll be starting in pretty soon on some of the heavy framing. This is just putting in girders. He was speaking directly to Miss Vogel, but he made an effort to include Bannon in the conversation by an awkward movement of his head. This stiffness in Peterson's manner when Bannon was within hearing had been growing more noticeable during the past few days. Don't you think of going yet? He continued with a nervous laugh, for Hilda was moving on. She needn't be in such a rush to get to work, eh, Charlie? Hilda did not give Bannon a chance to reply. Thank you very much, Mr. Peterson, she said smiling, but I must go back, really. Maybe you'll tell me someday when you're going to do something special so I can come up again. Peterson's disappointment was so frankly shown in his face that she smiled again. I've enjoyed it very much, she said. She was still looking at Peterson, but at the last word she turned to include Bannon, as if she had suddenly remembered that he was in the party. There was an uncomfortable feeling, shown by all in their silence, and in their groping about for something to say. I'll go ahead and clear the track, said Bannon. I'll holler up to you, Max, when we're ready down below. Here, said Max, let me go down. But Bannon had already started down the first ladder. The next time you come to visit us, Miss Vogel, he called back, I guess we'll have our real elevator in, and we can run you up so fast it'll take your breath away. We'll be real swells here yet. When he reached the working floor he called in the laborers and shouted to Max, but when the box, slowly descending, appeared below the bin walls, it was Peterson who held the line and chatted with Hilda as he steadied her. The next day a lot of cribbing came from Ledgerd, and Bannon at once set about reorganizing his forces so that work could go on night and day. He and Peterson would divide the time equally into 12-hour days, but three divisions were necessary for the men. The morning shift working from midnight until eight o'clock, the day shift from eight to four, and the night shift from four to midnight. Finally, when the whistle blew at noon, Bannon tipped back his chair and pushed his hat back on his head. Well, he said that's fixed. When will we begin on it? Peterson asked. Today, have the whistle blow at four. It'll make some of the men work overtime today, but we'll pay them for it. Miss Vogel was putting on her jacket. Before joining Max, who was waiting at the door, she asked, Do you want me to make any change in my work, Mr. Bannon? No, you'd better go on ahead just as you are. We won't try to cut you up into three shifts yet a while. We can do what letters and accounts we have in the daytime. She nodded and left the office. All through the morning's work, Peterson had worn a heavy puzzled expression, and now that they had finished, he seemed unable to throw it off. Bannon, who had risen and was reaching for his ulster, which he had thrown over the railing, looked around at him. You and I'll have to make twelve-hour days of it, you know, he said. He knew from his quick glance and the expression almost of relief that came over his face that this was what Peterson had been waiting for. You'd better come on in the evening, if it's all the same to you, at seven. I'll take it in the morning and keep an eye on it during the day. Peterson's eyes had lowered at the first words. He swung one leg over the other and picked up the list of carpenters that Max had made out, pretending to examine it. Bannon was not watching him closely, but he could have read the thoughts behind that sullen face. If their misunderstanding had risen from business conditions alone, Bannon would have talked out plainly. But now that Hilda had come between them, and particularly that it was also vague, a matter of feeling, and not at all of reason, he had decided to say nothing. It was important that he should control the work during the day, and coming on at seven in the morning, he would have a hand on the work of all three shifts. He knew that Peterson would not see it reasonably, that he would think it was done to keep him away from Hilda. He stood leaning against the gate to keep it open, buttoning his ulster. Coming on up to the house, Pete. Peterson got down off the railing. So you're going to put me on the night shift, he said, almost as a child would have said it. I guess that's the way it's got to work out, Bannon replied. Coming up? No, not yet. I'll be along pretty soon. Bannon started toward the door, but turning with a snap of his fingers. Oh, while we're at it, Pete, you'd better tell Max to get those men to keep time for the night shifts. You mean you want him to go on with you in the daytime? That's just as he likes it, but I guess he'll want to be around while his sister is here. You see about that after lunch, will you? Peterson came in while Bannon was eating his dinner and stayed after he had gone. In the evening, when he returned to the house for supper, after arranging with Peterson to share the first night's work, Bannon found that the foreman's clothes and grip had been taken from the room. On the stairs he met the landlady and asked her if Mr. Peterson had moved. Yes, she replied. He took his things away this noon. I'm sorry he's gone. He was a good young man. He never gave me any trouble like some of the men do that's been here. The trouble with most of them, that they get drunk on paydays and come home simply disgusting. Bannon passed on without comment. During the evening he saw Peterson on the distributing floor, helping the man from the electric light company rig up a new arc light. His expression when he caught sight of Bannon, sullen and defiant, yet showing a great effort to appear natural, was the only explanation needed of how matters stood between them. It took a few days to get the new system to running smoothly, new carpenters and laborers had to be taken on, and new foremen worked into their duties, but it proved to be less difficult than Max and Hilda had supposed from what Peterson had to say about the conduct of the work. The men all worked better than before. Each new move of Bannon's seemed to infuse more vigor and energy into the work, and the cupola and annex began rapidly, as Max said, to look like something. Bannon was on hand all day, and frequently during a large part of the night. He had a way of appearing at any hour to look at the work and keep it moving. Max, after hearing the day men repeat what the night men had to tell the boss and his work, said to his sister, Honest, Hilda, I don't see how he does it. I don't believe he ever takes his clothes off. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Calumet K. by Merwin Webster This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9 The direct result of the episode with the carpenter Riley was insignificant. He did not attempt to make good his boast that he would be back at work next day. And when he did appear, on Wednesday of the next week, his bleared eyes and dilapidated air made the reason plain enough. A business agent of his union was with him. Bannon found them in the office. He nodded to the delegate. Sit down, he said. Then he turned to Riley. I don't ask you to do the same. You're not wanted on the premises. I told you once before that I was through talking. Riley started to reply, but his companion checked him. That's all right, he said. I know your side of it. Wait for me up by the car line. When Riley had gone, Bannon repeated his invitation to sit down. You probably know why I had come, the delegate began. Mr. Riley has charged you with treating him unjustly and withdrawing a revolver on him. Of course, in a case like this, we tried to get it at both sides before we take any action. Would you give me your account of it? Bannon told in twenty words just how it had happened. The agent said cautiously. Riley told another story. I suppose so. Now, I don't ask you to take my word against his. If you'd like to investigate the business, I'll give you all the opportunity you want. If we find that he did drop the hammer by accident, would you be willing to take him back? Bannon smiled. There is no use in my telling you what I'll do, till you tell me what you want me to do, is there? Bannon held out his hand when the man rose to go. Any time you think there's anything wrong out here, or anything you don't understand, come out and we'll talk it over. I treat a man as well as I can, if he's square with me. He walked to the door with the agent and closed it after him. As he turned back to the drafting table, he found Hilda's eyes on him. They're very clean chaps mostly, those walking delegates, he said. If you treat him half as well as you treat a yellow dog, they're likely to be very reasonable. If one of them does happen to be a rascal, though, he's meaner to handle than frozen dynamite. I expect to be white-headed before I'm through with that man, Grady. Is he a rascal? she asked. He's as bad as you find him, even if he'd been handled right. Bannon broke off abruptly and began turning over the blueprints. Suppose I'd better see how this next story looks, he said. Hilda had heard how Pete had dealt with Grady at their first meeting, and she could complete the broken sentence. Bannon never heard whether the agent from the Carpenters Union had looked further into Riley's case, but he was not asked to take him back on the payroll. But that was not the end of the incident. Coming out on the distributing floor just before noon on Thursday, he found Grady in the act of delivering an impassioned oration to the group of laborers about the hoist. Before Grady saw him, Bannon had come near enough to hear something about being driven at the point of a pistol. The speech came suddenly to an end when Grady, following the glances of his auditors, turned and saw who was coming. Bannon noted with satisfaction the scared look of appeal which he turned for a second toward the men. It was good to know that Grady was something of a coward. Bannon nodded to him pleasantly enough. How are you, Grady? he said. Seeing that he was in no danger, the delegate threw back his shoulders, held up his head, and frowning in an important manner, he returned Bannon's greeting with a scantest disability. Bannon walked up and stood beside him. If you can spare the time, he said politely. I'd like to see you at the office for a while. Convinced now that Bannon was doing everything in his power to conciliate him, Grady grew more important. Very well, he said, when I've got through up here, you can see me if you like. All right, said Bannon patiently, no hurry. During the full torrent of Grady's eloquence, the work had not actually been interrupted. The big boom bearing its load of timber swept in over the distributing floor with unbroken regularity, but the men had worked with only half their minds and had given as close attention as they dared to the delegate's fervid utterances. But from the moment Bannon appeared, there had been a marked change in the attitude of the little audience. They steered the hoist and canted the timbers about, with a sudden enthusiasm, which made Bannon smile a little as he stood watching them. Grady could not pump up a word to say. He cleared his throat loudly once or twice, but the men ignored him utterly. He kept casting his shifty little sideways glances at the boss, wondering why he didn't go away. But Bannon continued to stand there, giving in an occasional direction and watching the progress of the work with much satisfaction. The little delegate shifted his weight from one foot to the other and cleared his throat again. Then he saw that two or three of the men were grinning. That was too much. Well, I'll go with you, he snapped. Bannon could not be sure how much of an impression Grady's big words and his ridiculous assumption of importance had made upon the men, but he determined to counteract it as thoroughly as possible, then and there. It was a sort of gallery play that he had decided on, but he felt sure it would prove effective. Grady turned to go down as he had come up, by the letters, but Bannon caught him by the shoulder, saying with a laugh. Oh, don't waste your time walking, take the elevator. His tone was friendly, but his grip was like a man-trap, and he was propelling Grady straight toward the edge of the building. Four big timbers had just come up, and Bannon caught the released rope as he came trailing by. Here, he said, put your foot in the hook and hang on, and you'll come down in no time. Grady laughed nervously. No, you don't. I suppose you'd be glad to get rid of me that way. You don't come that on me. The men were watching with interest. Bannon raised his voice a little. All right, he said, thrusting his foot onto the great hook. If you feel that way about it, we'll have a regular passenger elevator in here by and by, with an electric bell and sliding door for the capitalist crowd that are going to own the place. But we working men get along all right on this. Swing off, boys. He waited for Grady down below. It mattered very little to him, now, whether the walking delegate chose to follow him down the coister to walk down in the ladders, for everyone had seen that Grady was afraid. Bannon had seen all the men grinning broadly as he began his descent, and that was all he wanted. Evidently, Grady's fear of the rope was less than his dread of the ridicule of the men, for Bannon saw him preparing to come down after the next load. He took a long time getting ready, but at last they started him. He was the color of a handful of waste when he reached the ground, and he staggered as he walked with Bannon over to the office. He dropped into a chair and rubbed his forehead with his coat sleeve. Well, said Bannon, do you like the look of things? I hope you didn't find anything out of the way. Do you dare ask me that, Grady began? His voice was weak at first, but as his giddiness passed away it rose again to its own inimitable oratorical level. Do you dare pretend that you are treating these men right? Who gave you the right to decide that this man shall live and this man shall die, and that this poor fellow who asks no more than to be allowed to earn his honest living, with his honest sweat, shall be stricken down with two broken ribs? I don't know, said Bannon. You're speaking of the hoist incident, I suppose. Well, go and ask that man if he has any complaint to make. If he has, come and let me know about it. They call this a free country, and yet you oppressors can compel men to risk their lives. Have you any changes to suggest in the way that hoist is rigged? Bannon cut in quietly. You've been inspecting it. What did you think was unsafe about it? Grady was getting ready for his next outburst, but Bannon prevented him. There ain't many jobs, if you leave out tacking down carpets, where a man don't risk his life more or less. McBride don't compel men to risk their lives, he pays them for doing it, and you can bet he's done it himself. We don't like it, but it's necessary. Now, if you saw men out there taking risks that you think are unnecessary, why say so, and we'll talk it over. There's another thing you've got to answer for, Mr. Bannon. These are free men that are devoting their honest labor to you. You may think you're a slave driver, but you aren't. You may flourish your revolver in the faces of slaves, but free American citizens will resent it. Mr. Grady, the man I drew a gun on was a carpenter. His own union is looking after him. He had thrown a hammer down into a bin where some of your laborers were at work, so I acted in their defense. Grady stood up. I come here to give you warning today, Mr. Bannon. There is a watchful eye on you. The next time I come it will not be to warn but to act. That's all I've got to say to you now. Bannon, too, was on his feet. Mr. Grady, we tried to be fair to our men. It's your business to see that we are fair, so we ought to get on all right together. After this, if the men lodge any complaint with you, come to me. Don't go out on the job and make speeches. If you're looking for fair play, you'll get it. If you're looking for trouble, you'll get it. Good morning. The new regime in operation at the elevator was more of a hardship to Peterson than to anyone else, because it compelled him to be much alone. Not only was he quite cut off from the society of Max and Hilda, but it happened that the two or three under-forman whom he liked best were on the day shift. The night's work with none of those pleasant little momentary interruptions that used to occur in the daytime were mere unreleaved drudgery. But the afternoons, when he had given up trying to sleep any longer, were tedious enough to make him long for six o'clock. Naturally his disposition was easy and generous, but he had never been in the habit of thinking much, and thinking, especially as it led to brooding, was not good for him. From the first, of course, he had been hurt that the office should have thought it necessary to send Bannon to supersede him. But so long as he had plenty to do when was in Bannon's company every hour of the day, he had not taken time to think much about it. But now he thought of little else, and as time went on he succeeded in twisting nearly everything the new boss had said or done to fit his theory that Bannon was jealous of him and was trying to take from him the credit which rightfully belonged to him. And Bannon had put him in charge of the night shift, so Peterson came to think, simply because he had seen that Hilda was beginning to like him. About four o'clock one afternoon, not many days after Grady's talk with Bannon, Peterson sat in the steps of his boarding-house, trying to make up his mind what to do, and wishing it were six o'clock. He wanted to stroll down to the job to have a chat with his friends, but he had somewhat childishly decided he wasn't wanted there while Miss Vogel was in the office, so he sat still and whittled and took another view of his grievances. Glancing up he saw Grady, the walking delegate, coming along the sidewalk. Now that the responsibility of the elevator was off his shoulders he no longer cherished any particular animosity toward the little Irishman, but he remembered their last encounter and wondered whether he should speak to him or not. But Grady sought his doubt by calling out cheerfully to know how he was and turning in toward the steps. I suppose I ought to lick you after what's passed between us, he added with a broad smile, but if you're willing we'll call it bygones. Sure, said Peterson. It's fine seasonable weather we're having, and just the thing for you on the elevator, it's coming right along. First rate. It's an interesting bit of work as I ever saw. I was there the other day looking at it, and by the way I had a long talk with Mr. Bannon. He's a fine man. Grady had seated himself on the step below Peterson, now for the first time he looked at him. He's a good hustler, said Peterson. Well, that's what passes for a fine man these days, though mistakes are sometimes made that way. But how does it happen that you're not down there super intending? I hope some carpenter hasn't taken it into his head to fire the boss. I'm not boss there anymore. The office sent Bannon down to take it over my head. You don't tell me. It's a pity. Grady was shaking his head solemnly. It's a pity. The men like you first rate, Mr. Peterson. I'm not saying they don't like anybody else, but they like you. But people in an office a thousand miles away can't know everything, and that's a fact, and so he laid you off. Oh no, I ain't quite laid off yet. He's put me in charge of the night shift. So you're working nights then. It seemed to me you was working fast enough in the daytime to satisfy anybody, but I suppose some rich man is in a hurry for it, and you must do your best to accommodate him. You bet he's in a hurry for it. He won't listen to reason at all. Says the bins have to be chock full of grain before January 1st, no matter what happens to us. He don't care how much it costs, either. I must be going along, said Grady, getting to his feet. That man must be in a hurry, January 1st. That's quick work, and he don't care how much it costs him. Oh, these rich devils, they're hustlers too, Mr. Peterson. Well, good night to you. Peterson saw Bannon, twice every day, for a half hour at night when he took charge of the job and for another half hour in the morning when he relinquished it. That was all except when they chanced to meet during Bannon's irregular nightly wanderings about the elevator. As the days had gone by, these conversations had been confined more and more rigidly to necessary business, and though this result was Peterson's own fringing about, still he charged it up as another of his grievances against Bannon. When, about an hour after his conversation with Grady, he started down to the elevator to take command. He knew he ought to tell Bannon of his conversation with Grady, and he fully intended doing so. But his determination oozed away as he neared the office, and when he finally saw Bannon he decided to say nothing about it, whatever. He decided, thus partly, because he wished to make his conversation with Bannon as short as possible. Partly because he had not made up his mind what significance, if any, the incident had, and, more than either of these reasons, because ever since Grady had repeated the phrase, he don't care what it costs him, Peterson had been uneasily aware that he had talked too much. End of Chapter 9 CHAPTER X Grady's affairs were prospering beyond his expectations, confident though he had been. A way back in the summer, when the work was in its early stages, his eye had been upon it. He had bided his time in the somewhat indefinite hope that something would turn up. But he went away jubilant from his conversation with Peterson, for it seemed that all the cards were in his hands. Just as a man running for a car is the safest mark for a Gammon's snowball so Calumet-K, through being a rush job as well as a rich one, offered a particularly advantageous field for Grady's endeavors. Men who were trying to accomplish the impossible feat of completing, at any cost, the great hulk on the riverfront before the first of January, would not be likely to stop to quibble at paying the five thousand dollars or so that Grady, who, as the business agent of his union, was simply in mass grade, would like to extort. He had heard that Peterson was somewhat disaffected to Bannon's authority, but had not expected him to make so frank in a vowel of it. That was almost as much in his favour as the necessity for hurry. These, with the hoist-accident to give a colour of respectability to the operation, ought to make it simple enough. He had wit enough to see that Bannon was a much harder man to handle than Peterson, and that with Peterson restored to full authority the only element of uncertainty would be removed, and he thought that if he could get Peterson to help him it might be possible to secure Bannon's recall. If the scheme failed he had still another shot in his locker, but this one was worth a trial anyway. One afternoon in the next week he went around to Peterson's boarding-house and sent up his card with as much ceremony as though the night-boss had been a railway president. I hope you can spare me half an hour, Mr. Peterson. There's a little matter of business I'd like to talk over with you. The word affected Peterson unpleasantly. That was a little farther than he could go without a qualm. Sure, he said uneasily, looking at his watch. I don't know if I could call it business, either, Grady went on. When you come right down to it it's a matter of friendship, for surely it's no business of mine. Maybe you think it's queer. I think it's queer myself that I should be coming round tendering my friendly services to a man who's had his hands on my throat, threatening my life. That ain't my way, but somehow I like you, Mr. Peterson, and there's an end of it. And when I like a man I like him too. How's the elevator? Everything going to please you? I guess it's going all right. It ain't— Pete hesitated, and then gave up the broken sentence. It's all right, he repeated. Grady smiled. There's the good soldier. Won't talk against his general. But Mr. Peterson, let me ask you a question. Answer me as a man of sense. Which makes the best general, the man who leads the charge straight up to the entrenchments, yelling, Come on, boys! Or the one who says, very likely, shaking a revolver in their faces, Get in there, you damn lowdown privates, and take that fort, and report to me when I've finished my breakfast. Which one of those two men will the soldiers do the most for? For the one they like best, Mr. Peterson, and don't forget it. And which one of these are they going to like best, do you suppose? The brave leader who scorns to ask his men to go where he wouldn't go himself, who isn't ashamed to do honest work with honest hands, whose fists are good enough to defend him against his enemies? Or the man who was afraid to go out among the men without a revolver in his hip pocket? Answer me as a man of sense, Mr. Peterson. Peterson was manifestly disturbed by the last part of the harangue. Now he said, Oh, I guess Bannon wasn't scared when he drew that gun on Riley. He ain't that kind. Would you draw a gun on an unarmed, defenseless man? Grady asked earnestly. No, I wouldn't. I don't like that way of doing. The men don't like it either, Mr. Peterson. No more than you do. They like you. They'll do anything you ask them to. They know that you can do anything that they can. But Mr. Peterson, I'll be frank with you. They don't like the man who crowded you out. That's putting it mild. I won't say they hate him for an uncivil hard tongue sneaking weasel of a spy. I never knew Bannon to do anything like that, said Peterson slowly. I did. Didn't he come sneaking up and hear what I was saying up on top of the elevator the other day? I guess he won't try that again. I told him that when I was ready to talk to him I'd come down to the office to do it. Grady was going almost too far. Pete would not stand very much more. Already he was trying to get on his feet to put an end to the conversation. I ask your pardon, Mr. Peterson. I forgot. He was a friend of yours. But the point is right here. The men don't like him. They've been wanting to strike these three days just because they don't want to work for that ruffian. I soothed them all I can. But they won't hold in much longer. Mark my words. There'll be a strike on your hands before the week's out unless you do something pretty soon. What have they got to strike about? Don't we treat them all right? What do they kick about? Good many things, big and little. But the real reason is the one I've been giving you, Bannon, neither more nor less. Do you mean they'd be all right if another man was in charge? Grady could not be sure from Peterson's expression whether the ice were firm enough to step out boldly upon or not. He tested it cautiously. Mr. Peterson, I know you're a good man. I know you're a generous man. I know you wouldn't want to crowd Bannon out of his shoes the way he crowded you out of yours. Not even after the way he's treated you. But look here, Mr. Peterson. Who's your duty to? The men up in Minneapolis who pay your salary? Or the man who has come down here and is giving orders over your head? No, let me finish, Mr. Peterson. I know what you're going to say. But do your employers want to get the job done by New Years? They do. Do they pay you to help get it done? They do. Will it be done if that would be murderer of a Bannon is allowed to stay here? It will not. You can bet on it. Then it's your duty to get him out of here and I'm going to help you do it. Grady was on his feet when he declined the last sentence. He flung out his hand toward Pete. Shake on it, he cried. Peterson had also got to his feet, but more slowly. He did not take the hand. I much obliged, Mr. Grady. He said, It's very kind of you. If that's so, as you say, I suppose he'll have to go. And he'll go all right without any shoving when he sees that it is so. You go and tell just what you've told me to Charlie Bannon. He's boss on this job. Grady would have fared better with a man of quicker intelligence. Peterson was so slow at catching the black mailer's drift that he spoke in perfectly good faith when he made the suggestion that he tell Bannon and Grady went away a good deal perplexed as to the best course to pursue, whether to go directly to Bannon or to try the night boss again. As for Peterson, four or five times during his half-hour talk with Bannon at the office that evening, he braced himself to tell the boss what Grady had said, but it was not till just as Bannon was going home that it finally came out. Have you seen Grady lately? Pete asked as calmly as he could. He was around here something more than a week ago, gave me a little bomb-throwers anniversary oratory about oppressors and a watchful eye. There's no use paying any attention to him yet. He thinks he's got some trouble cooking for us on the stove, but we'll have to wait till he turns it into the dish. He ain't as dangerous as he thinks he is. He's been around to see me lately, twice. He has. What did he want with you? When was it he came? The first time was about a week ago. That was nothing but a little friendly talk, but friendly. Him? What did he have to say? Why, it was nothing. I don't remember. He wanted to know if I was laid off and I told him I was on the night shift. Was that all? Pretty near. He wanted to know what we was in such a hurry about, working nights, and I said we had to be through by January 1st. Then he said he's supposed it must be for some rich man who didn't care how much it cost him, and I said yes it was. That was all. He didn't mean nothing. We were just passing the time of day. I don't see any harm in that. Bannon was leaning on the rail, his face away from Peterson. After a while he spoke thoughtfully. Well, that clinches it. I guess he meant to hold us up, anyway. But now he knows we're a good thing. How's that? I don't see, said Peterson, but Bannon made no reply. What did he have to offer the next time he came around? More in the same friendly way? When was it? Just this afternoon. Why, he said he was afraid we'd have a strike on our hands. He ought to know, said Bannon, did he give any reason? Yes, he did. You won't mind my speaking it right out, I guess. He said the men don't like you, and if you wasn't recalled they'd likely strike. He said they'd work under me if you was recalled, but he didn't think he could keep them from going out if you stayed. That ain't what I think, mind you, but I'm just telling you what he said. Then he kind of insinuated that I ought to do something about it myself. That made me tired and I told him to come up to you about it. I said you was the boss here now and I was only the foreman of the night shift. Until that last sentence Bannon had been only half listening. He made no sign, indeed, of having heard anything, but stood hacking at the pine railing with his pocket-knife. He was silent so long that at last Peterson arose to go. Bannon shut his knife and wheeled around to face him. Hold on, Pete, he said we'd better talk this business out right here. Talk out what? What? Oh, I guess you know. Why don't we pull together better? What is it you're sore about? Nothing. You don't need to worry about it. Look here, Pete. You've known me a good many years. Do you think I'm square? I never said you wasn't square. You might have given me the benefit of the doubt, anyway. I know you didn't like my coming down here to take charge. Do you suppose I did? You were unlucky and a man working for McBride can't afford to be unlucky. So he told me to come and finish the job. And once I was down here he held me responsible for getting it done. I've got to go ahead just the best I can. I thought you saw that at first, and that we'd get on all right together, but lately it's been different. I thought I'd been working hard enough to satisfy anybody. It ain't that, and you know it ain't. It's just the spirit of the thing. Now I don't ask you to tell me why it is you feel this way. If you want to talk it out now, I'll write. If you don't, I'll write again. But if you ever think I'm not using you right, come to me and say so. Just look at what we've got to do here, Pete, before the first of January. Sometimes I think we can do it, and sometimes I think we can't. And we've got to, anyway. If we don't, McBride will just make up his mind we're no good, and unless we pull together we're stuck for sure. It ain't a matter of work entirely. I want to feel that I've got you with me. Come around in the afternoon if you happen to be awake, and fuss around and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I want to consult you about a good many things in the course of a day. Pete's face was simply a lens through which one could see the feelings that worked beneath, and Bannon knew that he had struck the right chord at last. How is it? Does that go? Sure, said Pete. I never knew you wanted to consult me about anything, or I'd have been around before. Friday afternoon Bannon received a note from Grady, saying that if he had any regard for his own interests, or for those of his employers, he would do well to meet the writer at ten o'clock Sunday morning at a certain downtown hotel. It closed with post-script containing the disinterested suggestion that delays were dangerous and a hint that the writer's time was valuable and he wished to be informed whether the appointment would be kept or not. Bannon ignored the note, and all day Monday expected Grady's appearance at the office. He did not come, but when Bannon reached his boarding-house about eight o'clock that evening, he found Grady in his room waiting for him. I can't talk on an empty stomach, said the boss cheerfully as he was washing up. Just wait till I get some supper. I'll wait, said Grady grimly. When Bannon came back to talk, he took off his coat and sat down a stride of chair. Well, Mr. Grady, when you came here before you said it was to warn me, but the next time you came you were going to begin to act. I'm all ready. All right, said Grady with a vicious grin, be as smart as you like. I'll be paid well for every word of it, and for every minute you've kept me waiting yesterday and tonight. That was the most expensive supper you ever ate. I thought you had sense enough to come, Mr. Bannon. That's why I wasted a stamp on you. You made the biggest mistake of your life. During the speech, Bannon had sat like a man hesitating between two courses of action. At this point he interrupted. Let's get to business, Mr. Grady. I'll get to it fast enough, and when I do, you'll see if you can safely insult the representative of the mighty power of the honest working man of this vast land. Well? I hear you folks are in a hurry, Mr. Bannon. Yes. And that you'll spend anything it costs to get through on time. How'd it suit you to have all your laborers strike about now? Don't that idea make you sick? Pretty near. Well, they will strike inside two days. What for? I suppose we settle with them direct. Just try that, said Grady, with withering sarcasm. Just try that and see how it works. I don't want to. I only wanted to hear you confess that you are a rascal. You'll pay dear for giving me that name, but we come to that later. Do you think it would be worth something to the men who hire you for a dirty slave driver to be protected against a strike? Wouldn't they be willing to pay a round sum to get this work done on time? Take a minute to think about it. Be careful how you tell me they wouldn't. You're not liked here, Mr. Bannon, by anybody. You're threatening to have me recalled according to your suggestions to Mr. Peterson the other night. Well, that's all right if you can do it. But I think that sooner than recall me or have a strike, they would be willing to pay for protection. You do. I didn't look for that much sense in you. If you'd shown it sooner, it might have saved your employers a large wad of bills. If you'd taken the trouble to be decent when I went to you in a friendly way, a very little would have been enough. But now I've got to be paid. What do you say to five thousand as a fair sum? They'd be willing to pay fully that to save delay, said Bannon cheerfully. They would. To save his life, Grady could not help looking crestfallen. It seemed, then, that he might have got fifty. All right, he went on. Five thousand it is, and I won it in hundred dollar bills. You do, cried Bannon, jumping to his feet. Do you think you're going to get a cent of it? I might pay blackmail to an honest rascal who delivered the goods paid for, but I had your size the first time you came around. Don't you think I knew what you wanted? If I thought you were worth buying, I'd have settled it up for three hundred dollars in a box of cigars right at the start. That's about your market price. But as long as I knew you'd sell out again if you could, I didn't think you were even worth the cigars. No. Don't tell me what you're going to do. Go out and do it, if you can, and get out of here. For the second time, Bannon took the little delegate by the arm, he marched him to the head of the long, straight flight of stairs, then he hesitated a moment. I wish you were three sizes larger, he said. End of CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI of Calumet K. By Merwin Webster This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER XI The organization of labor unions is generally democratic. The local lodge is self-governing. It elects its delegate, who attends a council of fellow delegates, and this council may send representatives to a still more powerful body. But however high their titles or their salaries, these dignitaries have power only to suggest action. Except in a very limited variety of cases. There must always be a reference back to the rank and file, the real decision lies with them. This is the theory. The laborers on Calumet K, with some others at work in the neighborhood, had organized into a lodge and had affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Grady, who had appeared out of nowhere, who had urged upon them the need of combining against the forces of oppression, and had induced them to organize, had been, without dissent, elected delegate. He was nothing more in theory than this, simply their concentrated voice, and this theory had the fond support of the laborers. He's not our boss, he's our servant, was a sentiment they never tired of uttering when the delegate was out of earshot. They met every Friday night, debated, passed portentous resolutions, and listened to Grady's oratory. After the meeting was over they liked to hear their delegate, their servant, talk mysteriously of the doings of the council, and so well did Grady manage this air of mystery that each man thought it assumed, because of the presence of others, but that he himself was of the inner circle. They would not have dreamed of questioning his acts in meeting or after, as they stood about the dingy, reeking hall over Barry's saloon. It was only as they went to their lodgings and groups of two and three that they told how much better they could manage things themselves. Bannon enjoyed his last conversation with Grady, thought it left him a good deal to think out afterward. He had acted quite deliberately, had said nothing that afterward he wished unsaid, but as yet he had not decided what to do next. After he heard the door slam behind the little delegate, he walked back into his room, paced the length of it two or three times, then put on his ulster and went out. He started off aimlessly, paying no attention to whether he was going, and consequently he walked straight to the elevator. He picked his way across the C and S C tracks, out to the wharf, and seated himself upon an empty nail-keg, not far from the end of the spouting-house. He sat there for a long while, heedless of all that was doing about him, turning the situation over and over in his mind. Like a good strategist, he was planning Grady's campaign as carefully as his own. Finally, he was recalled to his material surroundings by a rough voice which commanded, Get off that keg and clear out. We don't allow no loafers around here. Turning, Bannon recognized one of the under-forman. That's a good idea, he said. Are you making a regular patrol or did you just happen to see me? I didn't know it was you. No, I'm tending to some work here in the spouting-house. Do you know where Mr. Peterson is? He was right up here a bit ago. Do you want to see him? Yes, if he isn't busy. I'm not the only loafer here, it seems. At it, Bannon, nodding toward where the indistinct figures of a man and a woman could be seen corning slowly toward them along the narrow strip of wharf between the building and the water. Never mind, he added as the foreman took a step in their direction. I'll look after them myself. The moment after he had called the foreman's attention to them, he had recognized them as Hilda and Max. He walked over to meet them. We can't get enough of it in the daytime, can we? It's a great place for a girl, isn't it, Mr. Bannon? Said Max. I was coming over here and Hilda made me bring her along. She said she thought it must look pretty at night. Doesn't it? she asked. Don't you think it does, Mr. Bannon? He had been staring at it for half an hour. Now, for the first time, he looked at it. For ninety feet up into the air the large mass was one unrelieved, unbroken shadow, barely distinguishable from the night sky that enveloped it. Above was the skeleton of the cupola, made brilliant, fairly dazzling in contrast, by scores of arc lamps. At that distance, and in that confused tangle of light and shadow, the great timbers of the frame looked spidery. The effect was that of a luminous crown upon a gigantic, sphinx-like head. I guess you're right, he said slowly, but I never thought of it that way before. And I've done more or less night work, too. A moment later, Peterson came up. Having a tea-party out here, he asked, then turning to Bannon. Was there something special you wanted, Charlie? I've got to go over to the main house pretty soon. It's our friend Grady. He's come down to business at last. He wants money. Hilda was quietly signalling Max to come away, and Bannon, observing it, broke off to speak to them. Don't go, he said. We'll have a brief counsel of war right here. So Hilda was seated on the nail-keg, while Bannon, resting his elbows on the top of a spile, which projected waist high through the floor of the wharf, expounded the situation. You understand his proposition, he said, addressing Hilda, rather than either of the men. It's just plain blackmail. He says, if you don't want your laborers to strike, you'll have to pay my price. Not much, Pete broke in. I'd let the elevator rot before I'd pay a cent of blackmail. Paige wouldn't, said Bannon shortly, or McBride either. They'd be glad to pay five thousand or so for protection. But they'd want protection that would protect. Grady's trying to sell us a gold brick. He hated us to begin with, and when he'd struck us for about all he thought we'd stand, he'd call the men off just the same, and leave us to waltz the timbers around all by ourselves. How much did he want? All he could get. I think he'd have been satisfied with a thousand, but he'd come round next week for a thousand more. What did you tell him? I told him that a five cent cigar was a bigger investment than I cared to make on him, and that when we paid blackmail it would be to some fellow who'd deliver the goods. I said he could begin to make trouble just as soon as he pleased. Seems to me you might have asked for a few days time to decide. Then we could have got something ready to come at him with. He's liable to call our men out tonight, ain't he? I don't think so. I thought of trying to stave him off for a few days, but then I thought, why, he'll see through that game, and he'll go on with his scheme for sewing us up just the same. You see, there's no good saying we're afraid, so I told him that we didn't mind him a bit, and he could go out and have all the fun he liked with us. If he thinks we've got something up our sleeve, he may be a little cautious. Anyway, he knows that our biggest rush is coming a little later, and he's likely to wait for it. Then Hilda spoke for the first time. Has he so much power as that? Will they strike just because he orders them to? Why, not exactly, said Bannon. They decide that for themselves, or at least they think they do. They vote on it. Well, then, she asked, hesitatingly, why can't you just tell the men what Mr. Grady wants you to do, and show them that he's dishonest? They know they've been treated all right, don't they? Bannon shook his head. No use, he said. You see, these fellows don't know much. They aren't like skilled laborers who need some sense in their business. They're just common roustabouts, and most of them have gunpowder in place of brains. They don't want facts or reason, either. What they like is Grady's oratory. They think that's the finest thing they ever heard. They might all be perfectly satisfied and anxious to work, but if Grady was to sing out to know if they wanted to be slaves, they'd all strike like a freight-charing, rolling down grade. No, he went on. There's nothing to be done with the men. Do you know what would happen if I was to go right up to their lodge and tell right out that Grady was a blackmailer? Why, after they'd got through with me, personally, they'd pass a resolution vindicating Grady. They'd resolve that I was a thief and a liar and a murderer and an oppressor of the poor and a traitor, and if they could think of anything more than that, they'd put it in, too. And after vindicating Grady to their satisfaction, they'd take his word for law in the gospel more than ever. In this sort of a scrape you want to hit as high as you can, strike the biggest man who will let you in his office. It's the small fry that makes the trouble. I guess that's true most everywhere. I know the general manager of a railroad is always an easier chap to get on with than the division superintendent. Well, said Pete, after waiting a moment to see if Bannon had any definite suggestion to make as to the best way to deal with Grady, I'm glad you don't think he'll try to tie us up tonight. Maybe we'll think of something tomorrow. I've got to get back on the job. I'll go with you, said Max promptly. Then an answer to Hilda's gesture of protest. You don't want to climb away up there tonight. I'll be back in ten minutes. And he was gone before she could reply. I guess I can take care of you till he comes back, said Bannon. Hilda made no answer. She seemed to think that silence would conceal her annoyance better than anything she could say. So after waiting a moment, Bannon went on talking. I suppose that's the reason why I get ugly sometimes and call names, because I ain't a big enough man not to. If I was getting twenty-five thousand a year, maybe I'd be as smooth as anybody. I'd like to be a general manager for a while, just to see how it would work. I don't see how anybody could ever know enough to run a railroad. Hilda was looking up at the C&SC right-of-way, where red and white semaphore lights were winking. I was offered that job once myself, though, and turned it down, said Bannon. I was superintendent of the electric light-planted jogger. Jogger's quite a place, on a branch of the GT. There was another road ran through the town called the Bemis Jogger in Pacific. It went from Bemis to Stiles Corners, a place about six miles west of jogger. It didn't get any nearer the Pacific than that. Nobody in jogger ever went to Bemis or Stiles, and there wasn't anybody in Bemis and Stiles to come to jogger. Or, if they did come, they never went back. So the road didn't do a great deal of business. They assessed the stock every year to pay the officer's salaries, and they had a full line of officers, too, but the rest of the road had to scrub along the best it could. When they elected me Alderman from the First Ward up in jogger, I found out that the BYNP owed the city $430, so I tried to find out why they wasn't made to pay. It seemed that the city had had a judgment against them for years, but they couldn't get hold of anything that was worth seizing. They all laughed at me when I said I meant to get that money out of them. The railroad had one train. There was an engine and three box cars and a couple of flats and a combination—that's baggage and passenger. It made the round trip from Bemis every day, 52 miles overall, and considering the railroad bed and the engine, that was a good day's work. Well, that train was worth $430 all right enough, if they could have got their hands on it, but the engineer was such a peppery chap that nobody ever wanted to bother him. But I just bided my time, and one hot day after watering up the engine him and the conductor went off to get a drink. I had a few lengths of log-chain handy and some laborers with picks and shovels, and we made a neat clean little job of it. Then I climbed up into the cab. When the engineer came back and wanted to know what I was doing there, I told him we'd attached his train. Don't you try to serve no papers on me, he sung out, or I'll split your head. There's no papers about this job, said I. We've attached it to the track. At that he dropped the fire shovel and pulled open the throttle. The drivers spun around all right, but the train never moved an inch. He calmed right down after that and said he had $430 with him, but if I'd let the train go, he'd pay me in a week. I couldn't quite do that, so him and the conductor had to walk way to Bemis, where the general office was. They was pretty mad. We had that train chained up there for most a month, and at last they paid the claim. Was that the railroad that offered to make you general manager? Hilda asked. Yes, provided I'd let the train go. I'm glad I didn't take it up, though. You see, the farmers along the road who held the stock in it made up their minds that the train had quit running for good, so they took up the rails where it ran across their farms and used the ties for firewood. That's all they ever got out of their investment. A few moments later Max came back and Bannon straightened up to go. I wish you'd tell Pete when you see him tomorrow, he said to the boy, that I won't be on the job till noon. Going to take a holiday? Yes, tell him I'm taking the rest cure up at a sanitarium. At half past eight next morning Bannon entered the altar office of R. S. Carver, president of the Central District of the American Federation of Labor, and seated himself on one of the long row of wood-bottom chairs that stood against the wall. Most of them were already occupied by poorly dressed men who seemed also to be waiting for the president. One man, in dilapidated dirty finery, was leaning over the stenographer's desk, talking about the last big strike and guessing at the chance of there being any fun ahead in the immediate future. But the rest of them waited in stolid, silent patience, sitting quite still in unbroken rank along the wall, their overcoats, if they had them, buttoned tight around their chins, though the office was stifling hot. The dirty man who was talking to the stenographer filled a pipe with some very bad tobacco and ostentatiously began smoking it, but not a man followed his example. Bannon sat in that silent company for more than an hour before the great man came. Even then there was no movement among those who sat along the wall, save as they followed him almost furtively with their eyes. The president never so much as glanced at one of them, for all he seemed to see the rank of chairs might have been empty. He marched across to his private office, and leaving the door open behind him sat down before his desk. Bannon sat still a moment, waiting for those who had come before him to make the first move, but not a man of them stirred. So, somewhat out of patience with this mysteriously solemn way of doing business, he arose and walked into the president's office with as much assurance as though it had been his own. He shut the door after him. The president did not look up, but went on cutting open his mail. I'm from McBride and Company of Minneapolis, said Bannon. Yes, I don't know the parties. Yes, you do. We're building a grain elevator at Calumet. The president looked up quickly. Sit down, he said. Are you superintending the work? Yes, my name's Bannon, Charles Bannon. Didn't you have some sort of an accident out there, an overloaded hoist, and you heard a man, I believe? Yes. And I think one of your foremen drew a revolver on a man. I did myself. The president led a significant pause intervene before his next question. What do you want with me? I want you to help me out. It looks as though we might get into trouble with our laborers. You've come to the wrong man. Mr. Grady is the man for you to talk with. He is their representative. We haven't got on very well with Mr. Grady. The first time he came on the job, he didn't know our rule that visitors must apply at the office, and we weren't very polite to him. He's been down on us ever since. We can't make any satisfactory agreement with him. Carver turned away impatiently. You'll have to, he said, if you want to avoid trouble with your men. It's no business of mine. He's acting on their instructions. No, he isn't, said Bannon sharply. What they want, I guess, is to be treated square and paid a fair price. What he wants is blackmail. I've heard that kind of talk before. It's the same howl that an employer always makes when he's tried to bribe an agent who's active in the interest of the men and got left at it. What have you got to show for it? Anything but just your say-so? Bannon drew out Grady's letter of warning and handed it to him. Carver read it through then tossed it on his desk. You certainly don't offer that as proof that he wants blackmail, Mr. Bannon. There's never any proof of blackmail when a man can see me alone. He isn't going to talk before witnesses, and he won't commit himself in writing. Grady told me that unless we paid his price, he'd tie us up. No one else was around when he said it. Then you haven't anything but your say-so. But I know him, and I don't know you. Do you think I'd take your word against his? That letter doesn't prove blackmail, said Bannon, but it smells of it, and there's the same smell about everything Grady has done. When he came to my office a day or two after that hoist accident, I tried to find out what he wanted, and he gave me nothing but oratory. I tried to pin him down to something definite, but my stenographer was there, and Grady didn't have a suggestion to make. Then, by straining his neck and asking questions, he found out we were in a hurry, that the elevator was no good unless it was done by January 1st, and that we had all the money we needed. Two days after he sent me that letter, look at it again. Why does he want to take both of us to Chicago on Sunday morning, when he can see me any time at my office on the job? Bannon spread the letter open before Carver's face. Why doesn't he say right here what it is he wants, if it's anything he dares to put in black and white? I didn't pay any attention to that letter. It didn't deserve any. And then will you tell me why he came to my room at night to see me instead of to my office in the daytime? I can prove that he did. Does all that look as if I tried to bribe him? Forget that we're talking about Grady, and tell me what you think it looks like. Carver was silent for a moment. That wouldn't do any good, he said at last. If you had proof that I could act on, I might be able to help you. I haven't any jurisdiction in the internal affairs of that lodge. But if you could offer proof that he is what you say he is, I could tell them that if they continued to support him the Federation withdraws its support. But I don't see that I can help you as it is. I don't see any reason why I should. I'll tell you why you should, because if there's any chance that what I have said is true it will be a lot better for your credit to have the thing settled quietly, and it won't be settled quietly if we have to fight. It isn't very much you have to do. Just satisfy yourself as to how things are going down there. See whether we're square or Grady is. Then when the scrap comes on you'll know how to act. That's all. Do your investigating in advance. That's just what I haven't any right to do. I can't mix up in the business till it comes before me in the regular way. Well, said Bannon with a smile, if you can't do it yourself, maybe some man you have confidence in would do it for you. Carver drummed thoughtfully on his desk for a few minutes. Then he carefully folded Grady's letter and put it in his pocket. I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Bannon, he said, holding out his hand. Good morning. Next morning, while Bannon was opening his mail, a man came to the timekeeper's window and asked for a job as a laborer. Guess we've got men enough, said Max. Haven't we, Mr. Bannon? The man put his head in the window. A fellow down in Chicago told me if I'd come out here to Calumet-K and ask Mr. Bannon for a job, he'd give me one. Are you good up high? Bannon asked. The man smiled ruefully and said he was afraid not. Well, then, returned Bannon. We'll have to let you in on the ground floor. What's your name? James. Go over to the tool-house and get a broom. Give him a check, Max.