o leave his work on
such an errand. He bade her a brusque good-night, and hurried back,
pausing only after he had crossed the tracks, to cast his eye over the
timber. There was no sign of activity, though the two arc lamps were still
in place. "All in, eh," he said.

He followed the path beside the elevator and on around the end, and then,
with an exclamation, he hurried forward; for there was the same idle crowd
about the tracks that had been there during the trouble with the section
boss--the same buzz of talk, and the idle laughter and shouting. As he
ran, his foot struck a timber-end, and he sprawled forward for nearly a
rod before recovering his balance; then he stopped and looked along the
ground.

A long line of timbers lay end to end, the timber hooks across them or
near by on the ground, where they had been dropped by the laborers. On
along the path, through the fence openings, and out on the tracks, lay the
lines of timber. Here and there Bannon passed gangs of men lounging on the
ground, waiting for the order to move on. As he passed through the fence,
walking on the timbers, and hurried through the crowd, which had been
pushed back close to the fence, he heard a low laugh that came along like
a wave from man to man. In a moment he was in front of them all.

The middle tracks were clear, excepting a group of three or four men, who
stood a little to one side. Bannon could not make them out. Another crowd
of laborers was pressed back against the opposite fence. These had moved
apart at one of the fence openings, and as Bannon looked, two men came
through, stumbling and staggering under a long ten-by-twelve timber, which
they were carrying on their shoulders. Bannon looked sharply; the first, a
big, deep-chested man, bare-headed and in his shirt sleeves, was Peterson.

Bannon started forward, when Max, who had been hurrying over to him,
touched his arm.

"What's all this, Max?"

"I'm glad you've come. It's Grady, the walking delegate--that's him over
there where those men are standing, the little fellow with his hat on one
side--he's been here for ten minutes."

"Speak quick. What's the trouble?"

"First he wanted to know how much we were paying the men for night work,
and I told him. Thought I might as well be civil to him. Then he said we'd
got to take Briggs back, and I told him Briggs wasn't a union man, and he
hadn't anything to say about it. He and Briggs seemed to know each other.
Finally he came