"h.e.l.lo?"
"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 A1 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 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 to-morrow unloading that cribbing and getting it across."
Peterson, too, was thinking; and his eye-brows were coming together in a puzzled scowl.
"Oh," he said, "you mean to do it to-night?"
"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 to-night, 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?"