n elevator and annex. A
little over two feet remains to be done on the elevator beneath the
distributing floor. The timber is ready for framing the cupola. Two
hundred thousand feet of the Ledyard cribbing reached here by steamer last
night, and the balance will be down in a few days. Very truly yours,
MacBride & Company. That will do for them. Now, we'll write to Mr. Brown--
no, you needn't bother, though; I'll do that one myself. You might run off
the other and I'll sign it." He got up and moved his chair to the table.
"I don't generally seem able to say just what I want to Brown unless I
write it out." His letter ran:--

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