Calumet K""

May, and at the end of October it was still far from completion. Ill luck had attended Peterson, the constructor, especially since August. MacBride, the head of the firm, disliked un

unger co-laborer had reached Bannon, and he was not greatly surprised wh

tor. The sidewalks at Calumet are at the theoretical grade of the district, that is, about five feet above the actual level of the ground. In winter and spring they are necessary causeways above seas of mud, but in dry weather every one abandons them, to walk straight to his destination over the uninterrupted flats. Bannon set down his hand bag to butto

ber, was the beginning of a small spouting house, to be connected with the main elevator by a belt gallery above the C. & S. C. tracks. A hundred yards to the westward, up the river, the Belt Line tracks cross

cupola, and then asked a passing workman the way to the office. He frowned at the wretched shanty, evidently an abandoned

the boss?

ked up impatiently, and spoke in a tone

. Out on the j

ploughed." He brought his bag into the office and kicked it under a desk, then began turn

son for you if you want t

ame from Bannon, deep in his study of

ntil near by that he was not a boy-big-headed, big-handed, big-footed. He stood there in his shirt-sleeves, his back to Bannon, swearing good-humoredly at

up on the framing of the spouting

ng that stuff around

g bill of cribbing. You're Mr. Bannon, ain't you?" Bannon nodded

expecting that

at's most all we've b

, now; up there

isting rope. It was a good forty feet above the dock. Clinging to the rope with one hand, with the other Pete

he twenty-four pound sledge in a circle against the butt of the timber. Every muscle in his body from the ankles up had helped to deal the blow, and the big stick bucked. The boss sprang erect, flinging his arms w

annon climbed out on

s, "I've been looking for you.

I 'most met my death climbing up just

a man who can't get up on the timbers. If a

et fired first th

ll right, with your

the timbers with my bones. I los

d of the hoisting rope. Peterson sprang out upon it.

office as soon as I g

I'm coming down on the elevator." Peterson had already cast off the rope, but Bannon jumped for it and

u'd better leave that, I guess, and get some four-inch cribbing and some inch stuff a

er it either to cars or to ships. As has been said, it stood back from the river, and grain for ships was to be carried on belt conveyors running in an inclosed bridge above the railroad tracks to the small spouting house on the wharf. It had originally been designed to have a capacity for twelve hundred thousand bushels, but the grain men who were building it, Page & Company, had decided

e Grand Trunk, had made a business of rising to emergencies, was obviously the man for the situation. He was worn thin as an old knife-blade, he was just at the end of a piece of work that would have entitled any other man to a vacatio

e-" he began. But MacBride laughed, whereupon Banno

shook his head again gravely. He liked Peterson too well, for one thing, to supersede him without a qualm. But there w

ions, whistling softly, except when he stopped to growl, from force of habit, at the office, or, with more re

and, and drawing long breaths with the mere enjoyment of living. "I feel good," he said. "That's where I'd l

of those brass checks there and pay you eighteen

im. "I have to do it. Those laborers are no good. Hon

ame three don't stop to swap

t on me," said Peterson, laughing again.

there was an interruption. The red-headed young man he had spoken to an hour before came

umber checker." That formality attended to, he turned to Bannon and

mewhere else. They ain't happy except when they've just put me in a hole and told me to climb out. Generally before I'm out they pic

e doing that

straight," said Bannon. "Next time you're at the office, ask Brown about it. Since then they've paid me a salary. They seem to think they'd have to go out of business if I ever took a vacation. I've b

ike?" interrupted Peter

w him a while to find out that he means business. Well, he came 'round and saw I was feeling pretty tired, so

u get a

hey never gave us a minute's rest. I worked like a horse for about half a day and then I gave up. Told Brown

lying me about that cribbing for the last two weeks. I can't make it grow, and I've

the bill for it." Vogel handed him a thin typewritten sheet and Bannon looked it over th

ll ordered and cut

n why don't t

n't get

t the cars!' What sort of a ra

you about that, I g

ker. "That's enough for any one who's

ey kept 'em waiti

it, Max?" a

was two weeks a

ur

ere. His hair was good and red." Max laughed broadly at the re

riend, the wal

words out so sharply that Peters

nose into other people's business for a while, and asked the men questions, and at last he came to me. I told him that we treated our men all right and di

u down first, to even t

have handled him w

a look around," sai

l smiling good-humore

one, for even if he could be made to understand, he could undo nothing. Bannon had known a good many walking delegates, and he had found them, so far, square. But it would be a

at there was a new boss. There was no formal assumption of authority; Bannon's supremacy was established simply by the obvious fact that he was the man who knew how. Systematizing the confusion in one

it, plans, specifications, building book, bill file, and even the pay roll, the cash account, an

Bannon asked, holding up

e ain't an

Bannon commenced dictating his re

he clerk, "I ain'

dum on each sheet. "There's enough to go by," h

e to do it till t

" said Bannon, significantly. Then

ame into the office

o your girl?" said

e a stenographer

ude. You'll be wanting a solid silver electri

annon. "We ought to have

hed and sealed the two letters he

ess and no mistake. I'm

e fits. The whole job is

t chair bottoms waitin

will have a strike be

loor. The spouting house is framed. The annex i

ur

NN

urday night. I am about dead. Can't get any sleep. And I lost t

e to the whole damn thing and co

er was

COMPANY,

e of cribbing from Ledyard. Will have at least enough to work with by

s tr

COMPANY. CH