do it for you."

Carver drummed thoughtfully on his desk for a few minutes. Then he
carefully folded Grady's letter and put it in his pocket. "I'm glad to
have met you, Mr. Bannon," he said, holding out his hand. "Good
morning."

Next morning while Bannon was opening his mail, a man came to the
timekeeper's window and asked for a job as a laborer. "Guess we've got
men enough," said Max. "Haven't we, Mr. Bannon?"

The man put his head in the window. "A fellow down in Chicago told me if
I'd come out here to Calumet K and ask Mr. Bannon for a job, he'd give
me one."

"Are you good up high?" Bannon asked.

The man smiled ruefully, and said he was afraid not.

"Well, then," returned Bannon, "we'll have to let you in on the ground
floor. What's your name?"

"James."

"Go over to the tool house and get a broom. Give him a check, Max."

CHAPTER XII

On the twenty-second of November Bannon received this telegram:--

MR. CHARLES BANNON, care of MacBride & Company, South Chicago:

We send to-day complete drawings for marine tower which you will
build in the middle of spouting house. Harahan Company are building
the Leg.

MACBRIDE & CO.

Bannon read it carefully, folded it, opened it and read it again, then
tossed it on the desk.

"We're off now, for sure," he said to Miss Vogel. "I've known that was
coming sure as Christmas."

Hilda picked it up.

"Is there an answer, Mr. Bannon?"

"No, just file it. Do you make it out?"

She read it and shook her head. Bannon ignored her cool manner.

"It means that your friends on MacBride & Company's Calumet house are
going to have the time of their lives for the next few weeks. I'm going
to carry compressed food in my pockets, and when meal time comes around,
just take a capsule."

"I think I know," she said slowly; "a marine leg is the thing that takes
grain up out of ships."

"That's right. You'd better move up head."

"And we've been building a spouting house instead to load it into
ships."

"We'll have to build both now. You see, it's getting around to the time
when the Pages'll be having a fit every day until the machinery's
running, and every bin is full. And every time they have a fit, the
people up at the office'll have another, and they'll pass it on to us."

"But why do they want the marine leg?" she asked, "any more now than
they did at first?"

"They've got to get the wheat down by boat instead of rail, that's al