"There's never any proof of blackmail. When a man can see me alone, he isn't going to talk before witnesses, and he won't commit himself in writing. Grady told me that unless we paid his price he'd tie us up. No one else was around when he said it."
"Then you haven't anything but your say so. But I know him, and I don't know you. Do you think I'd take your word against his?"
"That letter doesn't prove blackmail," said Bannon, "but it smells of it. And there's the same smell about everything Grady has done. When he came to my office a day or two after that hoist accident, I tried to find out what he wanted, and he gave me nothing but oratory. I tried to pin him down to something definite, but my stenographer was there and Grady didn't have a suggestion to make. Then by straining his neck and asking questions, he found out we were in a hurry, that the elevator was no good unless it was done by January first, and that we had all the money we needed.
"Two days after he sent me that letter. Look at it again. Why does he want to take both of us to Chicago on Sunday morning, when he can see me any time at my office on the job?" Bannon spread the letter open before Carver's face. "Why doesn't he say right here what it is he wants, if it's anything he dares to put in black and white? I didn't pay any attention to that letter; it didn't deserve any. And then will you tell me why he came to my room at night to see me instead of to my office in the daytime? I can prove that he did. Does all that look as if I tried to bribe him? Forget that we're talking about Grady, and tell me what you think it looks like."
Carver was silent for a moment. "That wouldn't do any good," he said at last. "If you had proof that I could act on, I might be able to help you. I haven't any jurisdiction in the internal affairs of that lodge; but if you could offer proof that he is what you say he is, I could tell them that if they continued to support him, the federation withdraws its support. But I don't see that I can help you as it is. I don't see any reason why I should."
"I'll tell you why you should. Because if there's any chance that what I've said is true, it will be a lot better for your credit to have the thing settled quietly. And it won't be settled quietly if we have to fight. It isn't very much you have to do; just satisfy yourself as to how things are going down there. See whether we're square, or Grady is. Then when the scrap comes on you'll know how to act. That's all. Do your investigating in advance."
"That's just what I haven't any right to do. I can't mix up in the business till it comes before me in the regular way."
"Well," said Bannon, with a smile, "if you can't do it yourself, maybe some man you have confidence in would do it for you."
Carver drummed thoughtfully on his desk for a few minutes. Then he carefully folded Grady's letter and put it in his pocket. "I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Bannon," he said, holding out his hand. "Good morning."
Next morning while Bannon was opening his mail, a man came to the timekeeper's window and asked for a job as a laborer. "Guess we've got men enough," said Max. "Haven't we, Mr. Bannon?"
The man put his head in the window. "A fellow down in Chicago told me if I'd come out here to Calumet K and ask Mr. Bannon for a job, he'd give me one."
"Are you good up high?" Bannon asked.
The man smiled ruefully, and said he was afraid not.
"Well, then," returned Bannon, "we'll have to let you in on the ground floor. What's your name?"
"James."
"Go over to the tool house and get a broom. Give him a check, Max."
CHAPTER XII
On the twenty-second of November Bannon received this telegram:—
MR. CHARLES BANNON, care of MacBride & Company, South Chicago:
We send today complete drawings for marine tower which you will build in the middle of spouting house. Harahan Company are building the Leg.
MACBRIDE & Co.
Bannon read it carefully, folded it, opened it and read it again, then tossed it on the desk. "We're off now, for sure," he said to Miss Vogel. "I've known that was coming sure as Christmas."
Hilda picked it up.
"Is there an answer, Mr. Bannon?"
"No, just file it. Do you make it out?"
She read it and shook her head. Bannon ignored her cool manner.
"It means that your friends on MacBride & Company's Calumet house are going to have the time of their lives for the next few weeks. I'm going to carry compressed food in my pockets, and when meal time comes around, just take a capsule."
"I think I know," she said slowly; "a marine leg is the thing that takes grain up out of ships."
"That's right. You'd better move up head."
"And we've been building a spouting house instead to load it into ships."
"We'll have to build both now. You see, it's getting around to the time when the Pages'll be having a fit every day until the machinery's running, and every bin is full. And every time they have a fit, the people up at the office'll have another, and they'll pass it on to us."
"But why do they want the marine leg?" she asked, "any more now than they did at first?"
"They've got to get the wheat down by boat instead of rail, that's all. Or likely it'll be coming both ways. There's no telling now what's behind it. Both sides have got big men fighting. You've seen it in the papers, haven't you?"
She nodded.
"Of course, what the papers say isn't all true, but it's lively doings all right."
The next morning's mail brought the drawings and instructions; and with them came a letter from Brown to Bannon. "I suppose there's not much good in telling you to hurry," it ran; "but if there is another minute a day you can crowd in, I guess you know what to do with it. Page told me today that this elevator will make or break them. Mr. MacBride says that you can have all January for a vacation if you get it through. We owe you two weeks off, anyhow, that you didn't take last summer. We're running down that C. & S. C. business, though I don't believe, myself, that they'll give you any more trouble."
Bannon read it to Hilda, saying as he laid it down:—
"That's something like. I don't know where'll I go, though. Winter ain't exactly the time for a vacation, unless you go shooting, and I'm no hand for that."
"Couldn't you put it off till summer?" she asked, smiling a little.
"Not much. You don't know those people. By the time summer'd come around, they'd have forgotten I ever worked here. I'd strike for a month and Brown would grin and say: 'That's all right, Bannon, you deserve it if anybody does. It'll take a week or so to get your pass arranged, and you might just run out to San Francisco and see if things are going the way they ought to.' And then the first thing I knew I'd be working three shifts somewhere over in China, and Brown would be writing me I was putting in too much time at my meals. No, if MacBride & Company offer you a holiday, the best thing you can do is to grab it, and run, and saw off the telegraph poles behind you. And you couldn't be sure of yourself then."
He turned the letter over in his hand.
"I might go up on the St. Lawrence," he went on. "That's the only place for spending the winter that ever struck me."
"Isn't it pretty cold?"
"It ain't so bad. I was up there last winter. We put up at a house at Coteau, you know. When I got there the foundation wasn't even begun, and we had a bad time getting laborers, I put in the first day sitting on the ice sawing off spiles."
Hilda laughed.
"I shouldn't think you'd care much about going back."
"Were you ever there?" he asked.
"No, I've never been anywhere but home and here, in Chicago."
"Where is your home?"
"It was up in Michigan. That's where Max learned the lumber business. But he and I have been here for nearly two years."