"I wish you would tell me how to do it. I have worked like an all-the-year-round blast furnace ever since I could creep, and never slighted a job yet, but here I am--can't call my soul my own. I have saved fifteen thousand dollars, but that ain't enough to stop with. I don't see why I don't own a county too."

"There's some luck about it. And then I don't believe you look very sharp for opportunities. I suppose you are too busy. You've got a chance this minute to turn your fifteen thousand to fifty; maybe lot more."

"I'm afraid I'm too thick-headed to see it."

"Why, what you found out this morning was the straightest kind of a straight tip on the wheat market for the next two months. A big elevator like yours will be almost decisive. The thing's right in your own hands.

If Page & Company can't make that delivery, why, fellows who buy wheat now are going to make money."

"I see," said Bannon, quickly. "All I'd have to do would be to buy all the wheat I could get trusted for and then hold back the job a little.

And while I was at it, I might just as well make a clean job and walk off with the pay roll." He laughed. "I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, going to old MacBride with my tail between my legs, telling him that the job was too much for me and I couldn't get it done on time. He'd look me over and say: 'Bannon, you're a liar. You've never had to lay down yet, and you don't now. Go back and get that job done before New Year's or I'll shoot you.'"

"You don't want to get rich, that's the trouble with you," said Sloan, and he said it almost enviously.

Bannon rode to Manistogee on the first wagon. The barge was there, so the work of loading the cribbing into her began at once. There were numerous interruptions at first, but later in the day the stream of wagons became almost continuous. Farmers living on other than the Manistogee roads came into Ledyard and hurried back to tell their neighbors of the chance to get ahead of the railroad for once. Dennis, who was in charge at the yard, had hard work to keep up with the supply of empty wagons.

Sloan disappeared early in the morning, but at five o'clock Bannon had a telephone message from him. "I'm here at Blake City," he said, "raising h.e.l.l. The general manager gets here at nine o'clock to-night to talk with me. They're feeling nervous about your getting that message. I think you'd better come up here and talk to him."

So a little after nine that night the three men, Sloan, Bannon, and the manager, sat down to talk it over. And the fact that in the first place an attempt to boycott could be proved, and in the second that Page & Company were getting what they wanted anyway--while they talked a long procession of cribbing was creaking along by lantern light to Manistogee--finally convinced the manager that the time had come to yield as gracefully as possible.

"He means it this time," said Sloan, when he and Bannon were left alone at the Blake City hotel to talk things over.

"Yes, I think he does. If he don't, I'll come up here again and have a short session with him."

CHAPTER V

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAYOUT]

It was nearly five o'clock when Bannon appeared at the elevator on Thursday. He at once sought Peterson.

"Well, what luck did you have?" he asked. "Did you get my message?"

"Your message? Oh, sure. You said the cribbing was coming down by boat.

I don't see how, though. Ledyard ain't on the lake."

"Well, it's coming just the same, two hundred thousand feet of it. What have you done about it?"

"Oh, we'll be ready for it, soon's it gets here."

They were standing at the north side of the elevator near the paling fence which bounded the C. & S. C. right of way. Bannon looked across the tracks to the wharf; the pile of timber was still there.

"Did you have any trouble with the railroad when you took your stuff across for the spouting house?" he asked.

"Not much of any. The section boss came around and talked a little, but we only opened the fence in one place, and that seemed to suit him."

Bannon was looking about, calculating with his eye the s.p.a.ce that was available for the incoming lumber.

"How'd you manage that business, anyway?" asked Peterson.

"What business?"

"The cribbing. How'd you get it to the lake?"

"Oh, that was easy. I just carried it off."

"Yes, you did!"

"Look here, Pete, that timber hasn't got any business out there on the wharf. We've got to have that room for the cribbing."

"That's all right. The steamer won't get in much before to-morrow night, will it?"

"We aren't doing any banking on that. I've got a notion that the Pages aren't sending out any six-mile-an-hour scow to do their quick work.

That timber's got to come over here to-night. May as well put it where the carpenters can get right at it. We'll be on the cupola before long, anyhow."

"But it's five o'clock already. There's the whistle."

Bannon waited while the long blast sounded through the crisp air. Then he said:--

"Offer the men double pay, and tell them that any man can go home that wants to, right now, but if they say they'll stay, they've got to see it through."

Already the laborers were hurrying toward the tool house in a long, irregular line. Peterson started toward the office, to give the word to the men before they could hand in their time checks.

"Mr. Bannon."

The foreman turned; Vogel was approaching.

"I wanted to see about that cribbing bill. How much of it's coming down by boat?"

"Two hundred thousand. You'd better help Peterson get that timber out of the way. We're holding the men."

"Yes, I've been waiting for directions about that. We can put a big gang on it, and snake it across in no time."

"You'll have to open up the fence in half a dozen places, and put on every man you've got. There's no use in making an all-night job of it."

"I'm afraid we'll have trouble with the railroad."

"No, we won't. If they kick, you send them to me. Are your arc lights in?"

"Yes, all but one or two. They were going to finish it to-day, but they ain't very spry about it."

"Tell you what you do, Max; you call them up and tell them we want a man to come out here and stay for a while. I may want to move the lights around a little. And, anyhow, they may as well clean up their job and have it done with."

He was starting back after the returning laborers when Max said:--

"Mr. Bannon."