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
hell. The general manager gets here at nine o'clock tonight 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

Illustration [Map of the Elevator site]

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 space 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. T