umber to do it with, and we've got it now. It's the little work that
can raise Ned with you. There is more than a million little things that
any man ought to do in half an hour, but if one of 'em goes wrong, it may
hold you up for all day. Now, I figure the business this way."

He took a memorandum from his pocket and began reading. There was very
little guesswork about it; he had set down as nearly as possible the
amount of labor involved in each separate piece of construction, and the
number of men who could work on it at once. Allowing for the different
kinds of work that could be done simultaneously, he made out a total of
one hundred and twenty days.

"Well, that's all right, I guess," said Pete, "but you see that takes us
way along into next year sometime."

"About March first," said Max.

"You haven't divided by three yet," said Bannon. "We'll get three
eight-hour days into every twenty-four hours, and twenty-one of 'em
into every week."

"Why, that's better than we need to do," said Pete, after a moment. "That
gets us about two weeks ahead of time."

"Did you ever get through when you thought you would?" Bannon demanded. "I
never did. Don't you know that you always get hit by something you ain't
looking for? I'm figuring in our hard-luck margin, that's all. There are
some things I am looking for, too. We'll have a strike here before we get
through."

"Oh, I guess not," said Pete, easily. "You're still thinking of Reilly,
aren't you."

"And for another thing, Page & Company are likely to spring something on
us at the last moment."

"What sort of thing?"

"If I knew I'd go ahead and build it now, but I don't."

"How are you going to work three gangs? Who'll look after'em?"

"One of us has got to stay up nights, I guess," said Bannon. "We'll have
to get a couple of boys to help Max keep time. It may take us a day or two
to get the good men divided up and the thing to running properly, but we
ought to be going full blast by the first of the week."

He arose and buttoned his coat. "You two know the men better than I do. I
wish you'd go through the pay roll and pick out the best men and find out,
if you can, who'll work nights at regular night wages."

Peterson came out of the office with him.

"I suppose you'll put me in the night gang," he said.

"I haven't decided yet what I'll do."

"When I came by the main hoist," Pete went on, "they was picking up four
and five sticks at once. I stopped 'em,