Illustration [Map of the Elevator site]
It was nearly five o'clock when Bannon appeared at the elevator on
Thursday. He at once sought Peterson.
"Well, what luck did you have?" he asked. "Did you get my message?"
"Your message? Oh, sure. You said the cribbing was coming down by boat. I
don't see how, though. Ledyard ain't on the lake."
"Well, it's coming just the same, two hundred thousand feet of it. What
have you done about it?"
"Oh, we'll be ready for it, soon's it gets here."
They were standing at the north side of the elevator near the paling fence
which bounded the C. & S. C. right of way. Bannon looked across the tracks
to the wharf; the pile of timber was still there.
"Did you have any trouble with the railroad when you took your stuff
across for the spouting house?" he asked.
"Not much of any. The section boss came around and talked a little, but we
only opened the fence in one place, and that seemed to suit him."
Bannon was looking about, calculating with his eye the space that was
available for the incoming lumber.
"How'd you manage that business, anyway?" asked Peterson.
"What business?"
"The cribbing. How'd you get it to the lake?"
"Oh, that was easy. I just carried it off."
"Yes, you did!"
"Look here, Pete, that timber hasn't got any business out there on the
wharf. We've got to have that room for the cribbing."
"That's all right. The steamer won't get in much before tomorrow night,
will it?"
"We aren't doing any banking on that. I've got a notion that the Pages
aren't sending out any six-mile-an-hour scow to do their quick work. That
timber's got to come over here tonight. May as well put it where the
carpenters can get right at it. We'll be on the cupola before long,
anyhow."
"But it's five o'clock already. There's the whistle."
Bannon waited while the long blast sounded through the crisp air. Then he
said:--
"Offer the men double pay, and tell them that any man can go home that
wants to, right now, but if they say they'll stay, they've got to see it
through."
Already the laborers were hurrying toward the tool house in a long,
irregular line. Peterson started toward the office, to give the word to
the men before they could hand in their time checks.
"Mr. Bannon."
The foreman turned; Vogel was approaching.
"I wanted to see about that cribbing bill. How much of it's coming down by
boat?"
"Two hundred thousand. You'd better help Peterson get that timber out of
the way. We're holding the men."
"Yes, I've been waiting for directions about that. We can put a big gang
on it, and snake it across in no time."
"You'll have to open up the fence in half a dozen places, and put on every
man you've got. There's no use in making an all-night job of it."
"I'm afraid we'll have trouble with the railroad."
"No, we won't. If they kick, you send them to me. Are your arc lights in?"
"Yes, all but one or two. They were going to finish it today, but they
ain't very spry about it."
"Tell you what you do, Max; you call them up and tell them we want a man
to come out here and stay for a while. I may want to move the lights
around a little. And, anyhow, they may as well clean up their job and have
it done with."
He was starting back after the returning laborers when Max said:--.
"Mr. Bannon."
"Hello?"
"I heard you speaking about a stenographer the other day."
"Yes--what about it? Haven't you got one yet?"
"No, but I know of one that could do the work first-rate."
"I want a good one--he's got to keep time besides doing the office work."
"Yes, I thought of that. I don't suppose she--"
"She? We can't have any shes on this job."
"Well, it's like this, Mr. Bannon; she's an A 1 stenographer and
bookkeeper; and as for keeping the time, why, I'm out on the job all day
anyhow, and I reckon I could take care of it without cutting into my
work."
Bannon looked quizzically down at him.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said slowly. "Just look
around at this gang of men--you know the likes of them as well as I do--
and then talk to me about bringing a girl on the job." He shook his head.
"I reckon it's some one you're interested in."
"Yes," said Max, "it's my sister."
Max evidently did not intend to be turned off. As he stood awaiting a
reply--his broad, flat features, his long arms and bow legs with their
huge hands and feet, his fringe of brick-red hair cropping out behind his
cap, each contributing to the general appearance of utter homeliness--a
faint smile came over Bannon's face. The half-formed thought was in his
mind, "If she looks anything like that, I guess she's safe." He was silent
for a moment, then he said abruptly:--
"When can she start?"
"Right away."
"All right. We'll try it for a day or so and see how it goes. Tell that
boy in the office that he can charge his time up to Saturday night, but he
needn't stay around any longer."
Max hurried away. Group after group of laborers, peavies or cant-hooks on
shoulders, were moving slowly past him toward the wharf. It was already
nearly dark, and the arc lights on the elevator structure, and on the
spouting house, beyond the tracks, were flaring. He started toward the
wharf, walking behind a score of the laborers.
From the east, over the flats and marshes through which the narrow,
sluggish river wanders to Lake Michigan, came the hoarse whistle of a
steamer. Bannon turned and looked. His view was blocked by some freight
cars that were standing on the C. & S. C. tracks at some distance to the
east. He ran across the tracks and out on the wharf, climbing on the
timber pile, where Peterson and his gang were, rolling down the big sticks
with cant-hooks. Not a quarter of a mile away was a big steamer, ploughing
slowly up the river; the cough of her engines and the swash of the
churning water at her bow and stern could be plainly heard. Peterson
stopped work for a moment, and joined him.
"Well," Bannon said, "we're in for it now. I never thought they'd make
such time as this."
"She can lay up here all night till morning, I guess."
Bannon was thinking hard.
"No," he finally said, "she can't. There ain't any use of wasting all day
tomorrow unloading that cribbing and getting it across."
Peterson, too, was thinking; and his eyebrows were coming together in a
puzzled scowl.
"Oh," he said, "you mean to do it tonight?"
"Yes, sir. We don't get any sleep till every piece of that cribbing is
over at the annex, ready for business in the morning. Your sills are
laid--there's nothing in the way of starting those bins right up. This
ain't an all-night job if we hustle it."
The steamer was a big lake barge, with high bow and stern, and a long,
low, cargo deck amidships that was piled squarely and high with yellow
two-inch plank. Her crew had clearly been impressed with the need of
hurry, for long before she could be worked into the wharf they had rigged
the two hoists and got the donkey engines into running order. The captain
stood by the rail on the bridge, smoking a cigar, his hand on the
bell-pull.
"Where do you want it?" he called to Bannon.
"Right here, where I'm standing. You can swing your bow in just below the
bridge there."
The captain pulled the bell, and the snub-nosed craft, stirring up a whirl
of mud from the bottom of the river, was brought alongside the wharf.
"Where are you going to put it?" the captain called.
"Here. We'll clean this up as fast as we can. I want that cribbing all
unloaded tonight, sure."
"That suits me," said the captain. "I don't want to be held up here--ought
to pull out the first thing in the morning."
"All right, you can do it." Bannon turned to Peterson and Vogel (who had
just reached the wharf). "You want to rush this, boys. I'll go over and
see to the piling."
He hurried away, pausing at the office long enough to find the man sent by
the electric light company, and to set him at work. The arc lamps had been
placed, for the most part, where they would best illuminate the annex and
the cupola of the elevator, and there was none too much light on the
tracks, where the men were stumbling along, hindered rather than helped by
the bright light before them. On the wharf it was less dark, for the
lights of the steamer were aided by two on the spouting house. Before
seven o'clock Bannon had succeeded in getting two more lights up on poles,
one on each side of the track.
It was just at seven that the timbers suddenly stopped coming in. Bannon
looked around impatiently. The six men that had brought in the last stick
were disappearing around the corner of the great, shadowy structure that
shut off Bannon's view of the wharf. He waited for a moment, but no more
gangs appeared, and then he ran around the elevator over the path the men
had already trampled. Within the circle of light between him and the C. &
S. C. tracks stood scattered groups of the laborers, and others wandered
about with their hooks over their shoulders. There was a larger, less
distinct crowd out on the tracks. Bannon ran through an opening in the
fence, and pushed into the largest group. Here Peterson and Vogel were
talking to a stupid-looking man with a sandy mustache.
"What does this mean, Pete?" he said shortly. "We can't be held up this
way. Get your men back on the work."
"No, he won't," said the third man. "You can't go on with this work."
Bannon sharply looked the man over. There was in his manner a dogged
authority.
"Who are you?" Bannon asked. "Who do you represent?"
"I represent the C. & S. C. railroad, and I tell you this work stops right
here."
"Why?"
The man waved his arm toward the fence.
"You can't do that sort of business."
"What sort?"
"You look at that fence and then talk to me about what sort."
"What's the matter with the fence?"
"What's the matter with it! There ain't more'n a rod of it left, that's
what."
Bannon's scowl relaxed.
"Oh," he said, "I see. You're the section boss, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"That's all right then. Come over here and I'll show you how we've got
things fixed."
He walked across the track, followed by the section boss and Pete, and
pointed out the displaced sections of the fence, each of which had been
carefully placed at one side.
"We'll have it all up all right before morning," he said.
The man was running his fingers up under his cap.
"I don't know anything about that," he replied sullenly. "I've got my
orders. We didn't make any kick when you opened up in one place, but we
can't stand for all this."
He was not speaking firmly, and Bannon, watching him closely, jumped at
the conclusion that his orders were not very definite. Probably his
superintendent had instructed him to keep a close eye on the work, and
perhaps to grant no privileges. Bannon wished he knew more about the
understanding between the railroad and MacBride & Company. He felt sure,
however, that an understanding did exist or he would not have been told to
go ahead.
"That's all right," he said, with an air of easy authority. "We've got to
be working over your tracks for the next two months. It's as much to our
interest as it is to yours to be careful, and I guess we can pull
together. We've got an agreement with your general manager, and that's
what goes." He turned away, but paused and added, "I'll see that you don't
have any reason to complain."
The section boss looked about with an uncertain air at the crowd of
waiting men.
"Don't go too fast there--" he began.
"Look here," said Bannon, abruptly. "We'll sit right down here and send a
message to the general manager. That's the quickest way to settle it--tell
him that we're carrying out timber across the tracks and you've stopped
us."
It was a bluff, but Bannon knew his man.
"Now, how about this?" was the reply. "How long will it take you?"
"Till some time before daylight." Bannon was feeling for his pencil.
"You see that the fence goes back, will you? We ain't taking any chances,
you understand."
Bannon nodded.
"All right, Max," he shouted. "Get to work there. And look here, Max," in
a stern voice, "I expect you to see that the road is not blocked or
delayed in any way. That's your business now, mind." He turned to the boss
as the men hurried past to the wharf. "I used to be a railroad man
myself--chief wrecker on the Grand Trunk--and I guess we won't have any
trouble understanding each other."
Again the six long lines of men were creeping from the brightly lighted
wharf across the shadowy tracks and around the end of the elevator. Bannon
had held the electric light man within call, and now set him at work
moving two other arc lamps to a position where they made the ground about
the growing piles of timber nearly as light as day. Through the night air
he could hear the thumping of the planks on the wharf. Faintly over this
sound came the shouting of men and the tramp and shuffle of feet. And at
intervals a train would rumble in the distance, slowly coming nearer,
until with a roar that swallowed all the other noises it was past. The arc
lamps glowed and buzzed over the heads of the sweating, grunting men, as
they came along the path, gang after gang, lifting an end of a heavy stick
to the level of the steadily rising pile, and sliding it home.
Bannon knew from long experience how to pile the different sizes so that
each would be ready at the hands of the carpenters when the morning
whistle should blow. He was all about the work, giving a hand here, an
order there, always good-humored, though brusque, and always inspiring the
men with the sight of his own activity.
Toward the middle of the evening Vogel came up from the wharf with a
question. As he was about to return, Bannon, who had been turning over in
his mind the incident of the section boss, said:--
"Wait a minute, Max. What about this railroad business--have they bothered
you much before now?"
"Not very much, only in little ways. I guess it's just this section boss
that does it on his own hook. He's a sort of a fool, you know, and he's
got it into his head that we're trying to do him some way."
Bannon put his hands into his pockets, and studied the checkered pattern
in the ground shadow of the nearest arc lamp. Then he slowly shook his
head.
"No," he said, "that ain't it. He's too big a fool to do much on his own
hook. He's acting on orders of some sort, and that's just what I don't
understand. As a general thing a railroad's mighty white to an elevator.
Come to think of it, they said something about it up at the office,"--he
was apparently speaking to himself, and Max quietly waited,--"Brown said
something about the C. & S. C. having got in the way a little down here,
but I didn't think much about it at the time."
"What could they do?" Max asked.
"A lot, if they wanted to. But that ain't what's bothering me. They
haven't any connection with the G.&M., have they?"
"No"--Max shook his head--"no, not that I know of."
"Well, it's funny, that's all. The man behind those orders that the
section boss talks about is the general manager; and it's my notion that
we're likely to hear from him again. I'll tell you what it is. Somebody--I
don't know who, but somebody--is mighty eager to keep this house from
being finished by the first of January. After this I wish you'd keep your
eyes open for this section boss. Have you had any trouble with the men?"
"No, only that clerk that we laid off today, he 'lowed he was going to
make trouble. I didn't say anything about it, because they always talk
like that."
"Yes, I know. What's his name?"
"Briggs."
"I guess he can't hurt us any."
Bannon turned back to his work; and Vogel disappeared in the shadows along
the path.
Nine o'clock came, and the timber was still coming in. The men were
growing tired and surly from the merciless strain of carrying the long,
heavy sticks. The night was raw and chill. Bannon felt it as he stood
directing the work, and he kept his hands in his pockets, and wished he
had worn his overcoat; but the laborers, barearmed and bareheaded, clad
only in overalls or in thin trousers and cotton shirts, were shaking sweat
from their eyes, and stealing moments between trips to stand where the
keen lake breeze could cool them. Another half-hour or so should see the
last stick on the piles, and Bannon had about decided to go over to the
office when he saw Vogel moving among the men, marking their time in his
book.
"Here, Max," he called, adding, when Vogel had reached his side: "Just
keep an eye on this, will you? I'll be at the office. Keep things going
just as they are."
There was a light in the office. Bannon stepped into the doorway, and,
with a suppressed word of impatience, stood looking at the scene within.
The desk that Peterson had supplied for the use of his clerk was
breast-high from the floor, built against the wall, with a high stool
before it. The wall lamp had been taken down; now it stood with its
reflector on the top of the desk, which was covered with books and papers.
A girl was sitting on the stool, bending over a ledger and rapidly footing
up columns. Bannon could not see her face, for a young fellow stood
leaning over the railing by the desk, his back to the door. He had just
said something, and now he was laughing in a conscious manner.
Bannon quietly stepped to one side. The girl looked up for a moment and
brushed her hair back from her face. The fellow spoke again in a low tone,
but beyond a slight compressing of her lips she did not seem to hear him.
Without a word, Bannon came forward, took him by the arm, and led him out
of the door. Still holding his arm, he took a step back, and (they stood
in the outer circle of the electric light) looked him over.
"Let's see," he said, "you're the man that was clerking here."
There was no reply. "And your name's--what?"
"Briggs."
"Well, Mr. Briggs, did you get a message from me?"
"I don't know what you mean," said the young man, his eyes on the ground.
"Max, he come around, but I wanted to wait and see you. He's a mean
cuss--"
"You see me now, don't you?"
"Yes." The reply was indistinct.
"You keep out of the office after this. If I catch you in there again, I
won't stop to talk. Now, clear out."
Briggs walked a little way, then turned. "Maybe you think you can lay me
off without notice--but you'll wish--"
Bannon turned back to the office, giving no heed to Briggs' last words:
"I've got you fixed already." He was thinking of the girl there on the
stool. She did not look like the girl he had expected to see. To be sure
her hair was red, but it was not of the red that outcropped from Max's big
head; it was of a dark, rich color, and it had caught the light from the
lamp with such a shine as there is in new red gold. When he entered, she
was again footing columns. She was slender, and her hand, where it
supported her forehead was white. Again Bannon stood motionless, slowly
shaking his head. Then he came forward. She heard his step and looked up,
as if to answer a question, letting her eyes rest on his face. He
hesitated, and she quietly asked:--
"What is it, please?"
"Miss Vogel?"
"Yes."
"I'm Mr. Bannon. There wasn't any need of your working tonight. I'm just
keeping the men on so we can get in this cribbing. When did you come?"
"My brother telephoned to me. I wanted to look things over before starting
in tomorrow."
"How do you find it?"
She hesitated, glancing over the jumble of papers on the desk.
"It hasn't been kept up very well," she presently said. "But it won't be
hard, I think, to straighten it out."
Bannon leaned on the rail and glanced at the paper on which she had been
setting down totals.
"I guess you'd better go home, Miss Vogel. It's after nine o'clock."
"I can finish in an hour."
"You'd better go. There'll be chances enough for night work without your
making them."
She smiled, cleared up the desk, and reached for her jacket, which hung
from the nail behind her. Then she paused.
"I thought I would wait for my brother, Mr. Bannon."
"That's all right. I guess we can spare him. I'll speak to him. Do you
live far?"
"No; Max and I are boarding at the same place."
He had got to the door when she asked:--
"Shall I put out the light?"
He turned and nodded. She was drawing on her gloves. She perhaps was not a
very pretty girl, but there was something in her manner, as she stood
there in the dim light, her hair straying out from beneath her white
"sombrero" hat, that for the moment took Bannon far away from this
environment of railroad tracks and lumber piles. He waited till she came
out, then he locked the door.
"I'll walk along with you myself, if you don't mind," he said. And after
they had crossed the Belt Line tracks, and he had helped her, with a
little laugh from each of them, to pick her way over the switches and
between the freight cars, he said: "You don't look much like your
brother."
It was not a long walk to the boarding house but before they had reached
it Bannon was nervous. It was not a custom with him to leave his work on
such an errand. He bade her a brusque good-night, and hurried back,
pausing only after he had crossed the tracks, to cast his eye over the
timber. There was no sign of activity, though the two arc lamps were still
in place. "All in, eh," he said.
He followed the path beside the elevator and on around the end, and then,
with an exclamation, he hurried forward; for there was the same idle crowd
about the tracks that had been there during the trouble with the section
boss--the same buzz of talk, and the idle laughter and shouting. As he
ran, his foot struck a timber-end, and he sprawled forward for nearly a
rod before recovering his balance; then he stopped and looked along the
ground.
A long line of timbers lay end to end, the timber hooks across them or
near by on the ground, where they had been dropped by the laborers. On
along the path, through the fence openings, and out on the tracks, lay the
lines of timber. Here and there Bannon passed gangs of men lounging on the
ground, waiting for the order to move on. As he passed through the fence,
walking on the timbers, and hurried through the crowd, which had been
pushed back close to the fence, he heard a low laugh that came along like
a wave from man to man. In a moment he was in front of them all.
The middle tracks were clear, excepting a group of three or four men, who
stood a little to one side. Bannon could not make them out. Another crowd
of laborers was pressed back against the opposite fence. These had moved
apart at one of the fence openings, and as Bannon looked, two men came
through, stumbling and staggering under a long ten-by-twelve timber, which
they were carrying on their shoulders. Bannon looked sharply; the first, a
big, deep-chested man, bare-headed and in his shirt sleeves, was Peterson.
Bannon started forward, when Max, who had been hurrying over to him,
touched his arm.
"What's all this, Max?"
"I'm glad you've come. It's Grady, the walking delegate--that's him over
there where those men are standing, the little fellow with his hat on one
side--he's been here for ten minutes."
"Speak quick. What's the trouble?"
"First he wanted to know how much we were paying the men for night work,
and I told him. Thought I might as well be civil to him. Then he said we'd
got to take Briggs back, and I told him Briggs wasn't a union man, and he
hadn't anything to say about it. He and Briggs seemed to know each other.
Finally he came out here on the job and said we were working the men too
hard--said we'd have to put ten men on the heavy sticks and eight on the
others. I was going to do it, but Peterson came up and said he wouldn't do
it, and Grady called the men off, just where they were. He wouldn't let
'em lift a finger. You see there's timber all over the tracks. Then Pete
got mad, and said him and Donnelly could bring a twenty-foot stick over
alone, and it was all rot about putting on more men. Here they come--just
look at Pete's arms! He could lift a house."
Some of the men were laughing, others growling, but all had their eyes
fixed on Peterson and Donnelly as they came across the tracks, slowly
picking their way, and shifting the weight a little, at every few seconds,
on their shoulders. Bannon was glancing swiftly about, taking in the
situation. He would not imperil his discipline by reproving Peterson
before the men, so he stood for a moment, thinking, until the task should
be accomplished.
"It's Briggs that did the whole business," Max was saying. "He brought the
delegate around--he was blowing about it among the men when I found him."
"Is he on the job now?" Bannon asked.
"No, and I don't think he'll be around again very soon. There were some
loafers with him, and they took him away."
Peterson and Donnelly had disappeared through the fence, and a few of the
crowd were following, to see them get the timber clear around the building
to the pile.
"Have you sent out flagmen, Max?" Bannon asked.
"No, I didn't."
"Get at it quick--send a man each way with a lantern--put something red
over them, their shirts if necessary."
"None of the men will dare do it while the delegate's here."
"Find some one--take one side yourself, if you have to."
Max hurried away for the lanterns, Bannon walked out to the group of men
on the middle tracks.
"Where's Mr. Grady?" he said.
One of the men pointed, but the delegate gave no attention.
"You're Mr. Grady, are you?" said Bannon. "I'm Mr. Bannon, of MacBride &
Company. What's the trouble here?"
The delegate was revelling in his authority: his manner was not what it
was to be when he should know Bannon better. He waved his hand toward the
wharf.
"You ought to know better than that," he said curtly.
"Than what?"
"Than what?--than running a job the way this is run."
"I think I can run this job," said Bannon, quietly. "You haven't told me
what's the trouble yet."
"It's right here--you're trying to make money by putting on one man to do
the work of two."
"How?"
Bannon's quiet manner exasperated the delegate.
"Use your eyes, man--you can't make eight men carry a twelve-by-fourteen
stick."
"How many shall I put on?"
"Ten."
"All right."
"And you'd better put eight men on the other sticks."
The delegate looked up, nettled that Bannon should yield so easily.
"That's all right," said Bannon. "We aren't fighting the union. After
this, if you've got anything to say, I wish you'd come to me with it
before you call off the men. Is there anything else before I start up?"
Grady was chewing the stub of a cigar. He stood looking about with an ugly
air, then he said:--
"You ain't starting up just yet."
"Why not?"
The delegate's reply was lost in the shout that suddenly went up from the
western end of the line of laborers. Then came the sound of a locomotive
bell and exhaust. Bannon started down the track, jumping the timbers as he
ran, toward Vogel's lantern, that was bobbing along toward him. The train
had stopped, but now it was puffing slowly forward, throwing a bright
light along the rails.
"It's a C. & S. C. local," Max shouted. "Can't we clear up the right
track?"
Bannon stopped and looked around. About half of the men had followed him,
and were strung out in irregular groups between him and the timbers.
Walking up between the groups came the delegate, with two men, chewing his
cigar in silence as he walked. The train was creeping along, the fireman
leaning far out of the cab window, closely scanning the track for signs of
an obstruction. On the steps between the cars a few passengers were trying
to get a view up the track; and others were running along beside the
train.
"This has gone too far," Bannon muttered. He turned and shouted to the
men: "Clear up that track. Quick, now!"
Some of the men started, but stopped, and all looked at the delegate. He
stepped to one side and coolly looked over the train; then he raised his
hand.
"Don't touch the timbers," he said. "It ain't a mail train."
His voice was not loud, but those near at hand passed the word along, and
the long line of men stood motionless. By that time the train had stopped,
and three of the crew had come forward. They saw the timbers on the track
and hurried toward them, but the delegate called out:--
"Watch those sticks, boys! Don't let a man touch them!"
There was no hesitation when the delegate spoke in that tone. A score of
men blocked the way of the train crew.
Bannon was angry. He stood looking at Grady with snapping eyes, and his
hands closed into knotted fists. But Bannon knew the power of the unions,
and he knew that a rash step now might destroy all hope of completing the
elevator in time. He crossed over to the delegate.
"What do you want?" he said gruffly.
"Nothing from you."
"What do you want?" Bannon repeated, and there was something in his voice
that caused the delegate to check a second retort.
"You'll kill these men if you work them like this. They've been on the job
all day."
Bannon was beginning to see that Grady was more eager to make trouble than
to uphold the cause of the men he was supposed to represent. In his
experience with walking delegates he had not met this type before. He was
proud of the fact that he had never had any serious trouble in dealing
with his workmen or their representatives. Mr. MacBride was fond of saying
that Bannon's tact in handling men was unequalled; but Bannon himself did
not think of it in this way--to him, trouble with the laborers or the
carpenters or the millwrights meant loss of time and loss of money, the
two things he was putting in his time to avoid; and until now he had found
the maligned walking delegate a fair man when he was fairly dealt with. So
he said:--
"Well, what are you asking?"
"These gangs ought to be relieved every two hours."
"I'll do it. Now clear up those timbers."
The delegate turned with a scowl, and waved the men back to their work. In
a moment the track was clear, and the train was moving slowly onward
between the long lines of men.
Bannon started the gangs at work. When the timbers were again coming
across from the wharf in six slowly moving streams that converged at the
end of the elevator, he stood looking after the triangle of red lights on
the last car of the train until they had grown small and close together in
the distance. Then he went over to the wharf to see how much timber
remained, and to tell Peterson to hurry the work; for he did not look for
any further accommodation on the part of the C. & S. C. railroad, now that
a train had been stopped. The steamer lay quietly at the dock, the long
pile of cribbing on her deck shadowed by the high bow deckhouse from the
lights on the spouting house. Her crew were bustling about, rigging the
two hoisting engines, and making all ready for unloading when the order
should be given.
Peterson had been working through the timber pile from the shore side, so
that now only a thin wall remained at the outer edge of the wharf. Bannon
found him standing on the pile, rolling down the sticks with a peavey to
where the carrying gangs could pick them up. "Better bring all your men up
here, Pete, and clean it all away by the steamer. She may as well begin
unloading now."
Bannon walked back to the tracks, in time to see a handcar and trailer,
packed with men, come up the track and stop near at hand. The men at once
scattered, and brushing aside Bannon's laborers, they began replacing the
sections of fence. Bannon crossed to the section boss, who recognized him
and without comment handed him a telegraphed order.
"There's no getting around that," he said, when Bannon had read it.
"That's straight from the old man."
Bannon returned it, called Peterson, and hurried with him around the
elevator to find Max, who was overseeing the piling.
"What'll we do?" Peterson asked, as they ran; but Bannon made no reply
until the three were together. Then he said, speaking shortly:--
"Get the wire cable off one of your hoisting engines, Pete, and make one
end fast as high as you can on the spouting house. We'll run it across the
tracks, on a slope, down to this side. Max, you get a light rope and a
running block, and hang a hook on it."
"I see," said Max, eagerly. "You're going to run it over on a trolley."
"Yes. The engineers have gone, haven't they?"
"Went at five," said Peterson.
"That's all right. We'll only need the hoist at the spouting house. The
rest of it's just plain sliding down hill."
"But who'll run it?"
"I will. Pete, you get up on the spouting house and see that they're
started down. Max will stay over here and watch the piling. Now rush it."
Half an hour had gone before the cable could be stretched from the
spouting house, high over the tracks, down to the elevator structure, and
before the hoisting engine could be got under steam. Meanwhile, for the
third time since five o'clock, the laborers stood about, grumbling and
growing more impatient. But at last it was all under way. The timbers were
hoisted lightly up the side of the spouting house, hooked to the
travelling block, and sent whirling down to Max's waiting hands, to be
snatched away and piled by the men. But compared with the other method, it
was slow work, and Bannon found that, for lack of employment, it was
necessary to let half of the men go for the night.
Soon, to the rattle of blocks and the tramping of feet and the calling and
shouting of men, was added the creak of the steamer's hoists, and the
groan of her donkey engines as her crew began the work of dumping out the
cribbing by hand and steam, on the cleared space on the wharf. And then,
when the last big stick had gone over, Peterson began sending bundles of
two-inch cribbing. Before the work was finished, and the last plank from
the steamer's cargo had been tossed on the pile by the annex, the first
faint color was spreading over the eastern sky, and the damp of a
low-country morning was in the air.
Bannon stopped the engine and drew the fire; Peterson and his crew
clambered to the ground, and Max put on his coat and waited for the two
foremen to come across the tracks. When they joined him, Bannon looked
sharply at him in the growing light.
"Hello, Max," he said; "where did you get that black eye?"
"That ain't much," Max replied. "You ought to see Briggs."