Then Bannon turned. He faced about in his chair and began to talk straight at the committee, ignoring the delegate. Grady began to talk at the same time, but though his voice was the louder, no one seemed to hear him. The men were looking at Bannon. Grady hesitated, started again, and then, bound by his own rage and his sense of defeat, let his words die away, and stood casting about for an opening.
"—This man Grady threatened a good while ago that I would have a strike on my hands. He finally came to me and offered to protect me if I would pay him five thousand dollars."
"That's a lie!" shouted the delegate. "He come to me—"
Bannon had hardly paused. He drew a typewritten copy of Grady's letter from his pocket, and read it aloud, then handed it over to Murphy. "That's the way he came at me. I want you to read it."
The man took it awkwardly, glanced at it, and passed it on.
"Tonight he's ordered a strike. He calls himself your representative, but he has acted on his own responsibility. Now, I am going to talk plain to you. I came here to build this elevator, and I'm going to do it. I propose to treat you men fair and square. If you think you ain't treated right, you send an honest man to this office, and I'll talk with him. But I'm through with Grady. I won't have him here at all. If you send him around again, I'll throw him off the job."
The men were a little startled. They looked at one another, and the man on Murphy's left whispered something. Bannon sat still, watching them.
Then Grady came to himself. He wheeled around to face the committee, and threw out one arm in a wide gesture.
"I demand to know what this means! I demand to know if there is a law in this land! Is an honest man, the representative of the hand of labor, to be attacked by hired ruffians? Is he to be slandered by the tyrant who drives you at the point of the pistol? And you not men enough to defend your rights—the rights held by every American—the rights granted by the Constitution! But it ain't for myself I would talk. It ain't my own injuries that I suffer for. Your liberty hangs in the balance. This man has dared to interfere in the integrity of your lodge. Have you no words—"
Bannon arose, caught Grady's arm, and whirled him around.
"Grady," he said, "shut up." The delegate tried to jerk away, but he could not shake off that grip. He looked toward the committeemen, but they were silent. He looked everywhere but up into the eyes that were blazing down at him. And finally Bannon felt the muscles within his grip relax.
"I'll tell you what I want you to do," said Bannon to the committeemen. "I want you to elect a new delegate. Don't talk about interference—I don't care how you elect him, or who he is, if he comes to me squarely."
Grady was wriggling again.
"This means a strike!" he shouted. "This means the biggest strike the West has ever seen! You won't get men for love or money—"
Bannon gave the arm a wrench, and broke in:—
"I'm sick of this. I laid this matter before President Carver. I have his word that if you hang on to this man after he's been proved a blackmailer, your lodge can be dropped from the Federation. If you try to strike, you won't hurt anybody but yourselves. That's all. You can go."
"Wait—" Grady began, but they filed out without looking at him. James, as he followed them, nodded, and said, "Good night, Mr. Bannon."
Then for the last time Bannon led Grady away. Peterson started forward, but the boss shook his head, and went out, marching the delegate between the lumber piles to the point where the path crossed the Belt Line tracks.
"Now, Mr. Grady," he said, "this is where our ground stops. The other sides are the road there, and the river, and the last piles of cribbing at the other end. I'm telling you so you will know where you don't belong. Now, get out!"
CHAPTER XIV
The effect of the victory was felt everywhere. Not only were Max and Pete and Hilda jubilant over it, but the under-foremen, the timekeepers, even the laborers attacked their work with a fresher energy. It was like the first whiff of salt air to an army marching to the sea. Since the day when the cribbing came down from Ledyard, the work had gone forward with almost incredible rapidity; there had been no faltering during the weeks when Grady's threatened catastrophe was imminent, but now that the big shadow of the little delegate was dispelled, it was easier to see that the huge warehouse was almost finished. There was still much to do, and the handful of days that remained seemed absurdly inadequate; but it needed only a glance at what Charlie Bannon's tireless, driving energy had already accomplished to make the rest look easy.
"We're sure of it now. She'll be full to the roof before the year is out." As Max went over the job with his time-book next morning, he said it to every man he met, and they all believed him. Peterson, the same man and not the same man either, who had once vowed that there wouldn't be any night work on Calumet K, who had bent a pair of most unwilling shoulders to the work Bannon had put upon them, who had once spent long, sulky afternoons in the barren little room of his new boarding-house; Peterson held himself down in bed exactly three hours the morning after that famous victory. Before eleven o'clock he was sledging down a tottering timber at the summit of the marine tower, a hundred and forty feet sheer above the wharf. Just before noon he came into the office and found Hilda there alone.
He had stopped outside the door to put on his coat, but had not buttoned it; his shirt, wet as though he had been in the lake, clung to him and revealed the outline of every muscle in his great trunk. He flung his hat on the draughting-table, and his yellow hair seemed crisper and curlier than ever before.
"Well, it looks as though we was all right," he said.
Hilda nodded emphatically. "You think we'll get through in time, don't you, Mr. Peterson?"
"Think!" he exclaimed. "I don't have to stop to think. Here comes Max; just ask him."
Max slammed the door behind him, brought down the timekeeper's book on Hilda's desk with a slap that made her jump, and vaulted to a seat on the railing. "Well, I guess it's a case of hurrah for us, ain't it, Pete?"
"Your sister asked me if I thought we'd get done on time. I was just saying it's a sure thing."
"I don't know," said Max, laughing. "I guess an earthquake could stop us. But why ain't you abed, Pete?"
"What do I want to be abed for? I ain't going to sleep any more this year—unless we get through a day or two ahead of time. I don't like to miss any of it. Charlie Bannon may have hustled before, but I guess this breaks his record. Where is he now, Max?"
"Down in the cellar putting in the running gear for the 'cross-the-house conveyors. He has his nerve with him. He's putting in three drives entirely different from the way they are in the plans. He told me just now that there wasn't a man in the office who could design a drive that wouldn't tie itself up in square knots in the first ten minutes. I wonder what old MacBride'll say when he sees that he's changed the plans."
"If MacBride has good sense, he'll pass anything that Charlie puts up," said Pete.
He was going to say more, but just then Bannon strode into the office and over to the draughting table. He tossed Pete's hat to one side and began studying a detail of the machinery plans.
"Max." He spoke without looking up. "I wish you'd find a water boy and send him up to the hotel to get a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of coffee."