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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."
"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."
"Well, that's all right, I guess," said Pete, "but you see that takes us way along into next year sometime." "About March first," said Max. "You haven't divided by three yet," said Bannon. "We'll get three eight-hour days into every twenty-four hours, and twenty-one of 'em into every week." "Why, that's better than we need to do," said Pete, after a moment.
"How did you get hold of the message from the general manager?" asked Sloan abruptly. "Heard it. I can read Morse signals like print. Used to work for the Grand Trunk." "What doing?" "Boss of a wrecking gang." Bannon paused. Presently he went on. "Yes, there was two years when I slept with my boots on. Didn't know a quiet minute. Never could tell what I was going to get up against.
Said we'd bother 'em as little as possible; of course we had to put up the trestles in their property, because we couldn't hold the thing up with a balloon. "He asked me, innocent as you please, if a steel bridge couldn't be made in a single span, and I said, yes, but it would take too long. We only had a few days. 'Well, he says, 'Mr. Bannon, I'll give you a permit. And that's what he gave me.
"We'll have a brief council 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.
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.
"Lord, Max is a peach, though, ain't he." Bannon nodded and reëntered the office. He sat down and added a postscript to his letter: The C. & S. C. 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.
"You see, most of the boys know you've had a good deal to do with things on the job, and they've kind of took a shine to you " Pete suddenly awoke to the fact that he had never talked so boldly to a girl before. He hesitated, looked around at Max and James for support and at Bannon, and then, finding no help, he grinned, and the warm color surged over his face.
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 arose again to its own inimitable oratorical level. "Do you dare pretend that you are treating these men right?
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