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 had him
pretty busy there for a while thinking up lies. He was wondering how he
could get ready for the next caller, when I came at him and made him
wire the General Manager of the line. The operator was sitting right
outside the door, and when the answer came I just took it in--it gave
the whole snap away, clear as you want."

Miss Vogel turned on her stool.

"You took his message?"

"I should say I did. It takes a pretty lively man to crowd me off the
end of a wire. He told the superintendent not to give us cars. That was
all I wanted to know. So I told him how sorry I was that I couldn't stay
to lunch, caught the next train back to Ledyard, and built a fire under
Sloan."

Miss Vogel was looking out of the window.

"He said he could not give us cars?" she repeated.

Bannon smiled.

"But we didn't need them," he said. "I got a barge to come over from
Milwaukee, and we loaded her up and started her down."

"I don't understand, Mr. Bannon. Ledyard isn't on the lake--and you
couldn't get cars."

"That wasn't very hard." He paused, for a step sounded outside the door
and in a moment Peterson had come in.

"I guess you wanted to talk to me, didn't you, Charlie?"

"Yes, I'm writing to the office. It's about this C. & S. C. business.
You said you'd had trouble with them before."

"Oh, no," said Peterson, sitting on the railing and removing his hat,
with a side glance at Miss Vogel, "not to speak of. There wasn't nothing
so bad as last night."

"What was it?"

"Why, just a little t