DEAR MR. BROWN: We've finally got things going. Had to stir them up a little at Ledyard. Can you tell me who it is that's got hold of our coat tails on this job? There's somebody trying to hold us back, all right. Had a little fuss with a red-headed walking delegate last night, but fixed him. That hat hasn't come yet. Shall I call up the express company and see what's the matter? 7 1/4 is my size.
Yours,
BANNON.
He had folded the letter and addressed the envelope, when he paused and looked around. The typewritten letter to MacBride & Company lay at his elbow. He signed it before he spoke.
"Miss Vogel, have you come across any letters or papers about an agreement with the C. & S. C?"
"No," she replied, "there is nothing here about the railroad."
Bannon drummed on the table; then he went to the door and called to a laborer who was leaving the tool house:—
"Find Mr. Peterson and ask him if he will please come to the office for a moment."
He came slowly back and sat on the corner of the table, watching Miss Vogel as her pencil moved rapidly up column after column.
"Had quite a time up there in Michigan," he said. "Those G.&M. people were after us in earnest. If they'd had their way, we'd never have got the cribbing."
She looked up.
"You see, they had told Sloan—he's the man that owns the lumber company and the city of Ledyard and pretty much all of the Lower Peninsula—that they hadn't any cars; and he'd just swallowed it down and folded up his napkin. I hadn't got to Ledyard before I saw a string of empties on a siding that weren't doing a thing but waiting for our cribbing, so I caught a train to Blake City and gave the Division Superintendent some points on running railroads. He was a nice, friendly man."—Bannon clasped his hands about one knee and smiled reminiscently—"I had him pretty busy there for a while thinking up lies. He was wondering how he could get ready for the next caller, when I came at him and made him wire the General Manager of the line. The operator was sitting right outside the door, and when the answer came I just took it in—it gave the whole snap away, clear as you want."
Miss Vogel turned on her stool.
"You took his message?"
"I should say I did. It takes a pretty lively man to crowd me off the end of a wire. He told the superintendent not to give us cars. That was all I wanted to know. So I told him how sorry I was that I couldn't stay to lunch, caught the next train back to Ledyard, and built a fire under Sloan."
Miss Vogel was looking out of the window.
"He said he could not give us cars?" she repeated.
Bannon smiled.
"But we didn't need them," he said. "I got a barge to come over from Milwaukee, and we loaded her up and started her down."
"I don't understand, Mr. Bannon. Ledyard isn't on the lake—and you couldn't get cars."
"That wasn't very hard." He paused, for a step sounded outside the door and in a moment Peterson had come in.
"I guess you wanted to talk to me, didn't you, Charlie?"
"Yes, I'm writing to the office. It's about this C. & S. C. business. You said you'd had trouble with them before."
"Oh, no," said Peterson, sitting on the railing and removing his hat, with a side glance at Miss Vogel, "not to speak of. There wasn't nothing so bad as last night."
"What was it?"
"Why, just a little talk when we opened the fence first time. That section boss was around, but I told him how things was, and he didn't seem to have no kick coming as long as we was careful."
Bannon had taken up his letter to Brown, and was slowly unfolding it and looking it over. When Peterson got to his feet, he laid it on the table.
"Anything else, Charlie? I'm just getting things to going on the annex. We're going to make her jump, I tell you. I ain't allowing any loafing there."
"No," Bannon replied, "I guess not." He followed the foreman out of doors. "Do you remember having any letters, Pete, about our agreement with the C. & S. C. to build over the tracks—from the office or anybody?"
Peterson brought his brows together and tried to remember. After a moment he slowly shook his head.
"Nothing, eh?" said Bannon.
"Not that I can think of. Something may have come in while Max was here in the office—"
"I wish you'd ask him."
"All right. He'll be around my way before long, taking the time."
"And say," Bannon added, with one foot on the doorstep, "you haven't seen anything more of that man Briggs, have you?"
Peterson shook his head.
"If you see him hanging around, you may as well throw him right off the job."
Peterson grinned.
"I guess he won't show up very fast. Max did him up good last night, when he was blowing off about bringing the delegate around."
Bannon had drawn the door to after him when he came out. He was turning back, with a hand on the knob, when Peterson, who was lingering, said in a low voice, getting out the words awkwardly:—
"Say, Charlie, she's all right, ain't she."
Bannon did not reply, and Peterson jerked his thumb toward the office.
"Max's sister, there. I never saw any red hair before that was up to the mark. Ain't she a little uppish, though, don't you think?"
"I guess not."
"Red-haired girls generally is. They've got tempers, too, most of them. It's funny about her looks. She don't look any more like Max than anything." He grinned again. "Lord, Max is a peach, though, ain't he."
Bannon nodded and reentered 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. C. B.
He sealed the envelope and tossed it to one side.
"Miss Vogel," he said, pushing his chair back, "didn't you ask me something just now?"
"It was about getting the cribbing across the lake," she replied. "I don't see how you did it."
Her interest in the work pleased Bannon.
"It ain't a bad story. You see the farmers up in that country hate the railroads. It's the tariff rebate, you know. They have to pay more to ship their stuff to market than some places a thousand miles farther off. And I guess the service is pretty bad all around. I was figuring on something like that as soon as I had a look at things. So we got up a poster and had it printed, telling what they all think of the G.&M."—he paused, and his eyes twinkled—"I wouldn't mind handing one to that Superintendent just for the fun of seeing him when he read it. It told the farmers to come around to Sloan's lumber yard with their wagons."
"And you carried it across in the wagons?"
"I guess we did."
"Isn't it a good ways?"
"Eighteen to thirty miles, according to who you ask. As soon as things got to going we went after the General Manager and gave him a bad half hour; so I shouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the bill coming in by rail any time now."
Bannon got up and slowly buttoned his coat. He was looking about the office, at the mud-tracked floor and the coated windows, and at the hanging shreds of spider web in the corners and between the rafters overhead.
"It ain't a very cheerful house to live in all day, is it?" he said. "I don't know but what we'd better clean house a little. There's not much danger of putting a shine on things that'll hurt your eyes. We ought to be able to get hold of some one that could come in once in a while and stir up the dust. Do you know of any one?"