Calumet 'K'. Samuel Merwin
you get any fish?"
"Fish? Whales! You'd no sooner throw your line over than another one'd grab it—great, big, heavy fish, and they never gave us a minute's rest. I worked like a horse for about half a day and then I gave up. Told Brown I'd take a duplex car-puller along next time I tackled that kind of a job, and I went back to the elevator."
"I'd like to see Brown. I get letters from him right along, of course. He's been jollying me about that cribbing for the last two weeks. I can't make it grow, and I've written him right along that we was expecting it, but that don't seem to satisfy him."
"I suppose not," said Bannon. "They're mostly out for results up at the office. Let's see the bill for it." Vogel handed him a thin typewritten sheet and Bannon looked it over thoughtfully. "Big lot of stuff, ain't it? Have you tried to get any of it here in Chicago?"
"Course not. It's all ordered and cut out up to Ledyard."
"Cut out? Then why don't they send it?"
"They can't get the cars."
"That'll do to tell. 'Can't get the cars!' What sort of a railroad have they got up there?"
"Max, here, can tell you about that, I guess," said Peterson.
"It's the G. & M.," said the lumber checker. "That's enough for any one who's lived in Michigan. It ain't much good."
"How long have they kept 'em waiting for the cars?"
"How long is it, Max?" asked Peterson.
"Let's see. It was two weeks ago come Tuesday."
"Sure?"
"Yes. We got the letter the same day the red-headed man came here. His hair was good and red." Max laughed broadly at the recollection. "He came into the office just as we was reading it."
"Oh, yes. My friend, the walking delegate."
"What's that?" Bannon snapped the words out so sharply that Peterson looked at him in slow surprise.
"Oh, nothing," he said. "A darn little rat of a red-headed walking delegate came out here—had a printed card with Business Agent on it—and poked his long 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 didn't need no help from him, and if I ever caught him out here again I'd carry him up to the top of the jim pole and leave him there. He went fast enough."
"I wish he'd knocked you down first, to even things up," said Bannon.
"Him! Oh, I could have handled him with three fingers."
"I'm going out for a look around," said Bannon, abruptly.
He left Peterson still smiling good-humoredly over the incident.
It was not so much to look over the job as to get where he could work out his wrath that Bannon left the office. There was no use in trying to explain to Peterson what he had done, 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 large-minded man who could overlook what Peterson had done. However, there was no help for it. All that remained was to wait till the business agent should make the next move.
So Bannon put the whole incident out of his mind, and until noon inspected the job in earnest. By the time the whistle blew, every one of the hundreds of men on the job, save Peterson himself, knew that 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 corner, showing another gang how to save handling a big stick twice, finally putting a runway across the drillage of the annex, and doing a hundred little things between times, he made himself master.
The afternoon he spent in the little office, and by four o'clock had seen everything there was in it, plans, specifications, building book, bill file, and even the pay roll, the cash account, and the correspondence. The clerk, who was also timekeeper, exhibited the latter rather grudgingly.
"What's all this stuff?" Bannon asked, holding up a stack of unfiled letters.
"Letters we ain't answered yet."
"Well, we'll answer them now," and Bannon commenced dictating his reply to the one on top of the stack.
"Hold on," said the clerk, "I ain't a stenographer."
"So?" said Bannon. He scribbled a brief memorandum on each sheet. "There's enough to go by," he said. "Answer 'em according to instructions."
"I won't have time to do it till to-morrow some time."
"I'd do it to-night, if I were you," said Bannon, significantly. Then he began writing letters himself.
Peterson and Vogel came into the office a few minutes later.
"Writing a letter to your girl?" said Peterson, jocularly.
"We ought to have a stenographer out here, Pete."
"Stenographer! I didn't know you was such a dude. You'll be wanting a solid silver electric bell connecting with the sody fountain next."
"That's straight," said Bannon. "We ought to have a stenographer for a fact."
He said nothing until he had finished and sealed the two letters he was writing. They were as follows:—
Dear Mr. Brown: It's a mess and no mistake. I'm glad Mr. MacBride didn't come to see it. He'd have fits. The whole job is tied up in a hard knot. Peterson is wearing out chair bottoms waiting for the cribbing from Ledyard. I expect we will have a strike before long. I mean it.
The main house is most up to the distributing floor. The spouting house is framed. The annex is up as far as the bottom, waiting for cribbing. Yours,
Bannon.
P.S. I hope this letter makes you sweat to pay you for last Saturday night. I am about dead. Can't get any sleep. And I lost thirty-two pounds up to Duluth. I expect to die down here.
C. B.
P.S. I guess we'd better set fire to the whole damn thing and collect the insurance and skip.
C.
The other was shorter.
MacBride & Company, Minneapolis:
Gentlemen: I came on the Calumet job to-day. Found it held up by failure of cribbing from Ledyard. Will have at least enough to work with by end of the week. We will get the house done according to specifications.
Yours truly,
MacBride & Company.
Charles Bannon.
CHAPTER II
The five o'clock whistle had sounded, and Peterson sat on the bench inside the office door, while Bannon washed his hands in the tin basin. The twilight was already settling; within the shanty, whose dirty, small-paned windows served only to indicate the lesser darkness without, a wall lamp, set in a dull reflector, threw shadows into the corners.
"You're coming up with me, ain't you?" said Peterson. "I don't believe you'll get much to eat. Supper's just the pickings from dinner."
"Well, the dinner was all right. But I wish you had a bigger bed. I ain't slept for two nights."
"What was the matter?"
"I was on the sleeper last night; and I didn't get in from the Duluth job till seven o'clock Saturday night, and Brown was after me before I'd got my supper. Those fellows at the office wouldn't let a man sleep at all if they could help it. Here I'd been working like a nigger 'most five months on the Duluth house—and the last three weeks running night shifts and Sundays;