eight train which was
creaking its endless length across his path, to the elevator site.

The elevator lay back from the river about sixty yards and parallel
to it. Between was the main line of the C. & S. C, four clear tracks
unbroken by switch or siding. On the wharf, along with a big pile of
timber, was the beginning of a small spouting house, to be connected
with the main elevator by a belt gallery above the C. & S. C. tracks.
A hundred yards to the westward, up the river, the Belt Line tracks
crossed the river and the C. & S. C. right of way at an oblique
angle, and sent two side tracks lengthwise through the middle of the
elevator and a third along the south side, that is, the side away
from the river.

Bannon glanced over the lay of the land, looked more particularly at
the long ranges of timber to be used for framing the cupola, and then
asked a passing workman the way to the office. He frowned at the
wretched shanty, evidently an abandoned Belt Line section house,
which Peterson used for headquarters. Then, setting down his bag just
outside the door, he went in.

"Where's the boss?" he asked.

The occupant of the office, a clerk, looked up impatiently, and spoke
in a tone reserved to discourage seekers for work.

"He ain't here. Out on the job somewhere."

"Palatial office you've got," Bannon commented. "It would help those
windows to have 'em ploughed." He brought his bag into the office and
kicked it under a desk, then began turning over a stack of blue prints
that lay, weighted down with a coupling pin, on the table.

"I guess I can find Peterson for you if you want to see him," said
the clerk.

"Don't worry about my finding him," came from Bannon, deep in his
study of the plans. A moment later he went out.

A gang of laborers was engaged in moving the timbers back from the
railroad siding. Superintending the work was a squat little man--
Bannon could not see until near by that he was not a boy--big-headed,
big-handed, big-footed. He stood there in his shirt-sleeves, his back
to Bannon, swearing good-humoredly at the men. When he turned toward
him Bannon saw that he had that morning played an unconscious joke
upon his bright red hair by putting on a crimson necktie.

Bannon asked for Peterson. "He's up on the framing of the spouting
house, over on the wharf there."

"What are you carrying that stuff around for?" asked Bannon.

"Moving it back to make room by the siding. We're expecting a big