Calumet K | Page 2

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 bill
of cribbing. You're Mr. Bannon, ain't you?" Bannon nodded. "Peterson
had a telegram from the office saying to expect you."
"You're still expecting that cribbing, eh?"
"Harder than ever. That's most all we've been doing for ten days.
There's Peterson, now; up there with the sledge."
Bannon looked in time to see the boss spring out on a timber that was
still balancing and swaying upon the hoisting rope. It was a good forty
feet above the dock. Clinging to the rope with one hand, with the other
Peterson drove his sledge against the side of the timber which swung
almost to its exact position in the framing.
"Slack away!" he called to the engineers, and he cast off the rope sling.
Then cautiously he stepped out to the end of the timber. It tottered, but
the lithe figure moved on to within striking distance. He swung the
twenty-four pound sledge in a circle against the butt of the timber.
Every muscle in his body from the ankles up had helped to deal the
blow, and the big stick bucked. The boss sprang erect, flinging his arms
wide and using the sledge to recover his balance. He struck hard once
more and again lightly. Then he hammered the timber down on the iron
dowel pins. "All right," he shouted to the engineer; "send up the next
one."
A few minutes later Bannon climbed out on the framing beside him.

"Hello, Charlie!" said the boss, "I've been looking for you. They wired
me you was coming."
"Well, I'm here," said Bannon, "though I 'most met my death climbing
up just now. Where do you keep your ladders?"
"What do I want of a ladder? I've no use for a man who can't get up on
the timbers. If a man needs a ladder, he'd better stay abed."
"That's where I get fired first thing," said Bannon.
"Why, you come up all right, with your overcoat on, too."
"I had to wear it or scratch up the timbers with my bones. I lost
thirty-two pounds up at Duluth."
Another big timber came swinging up to them at the end of the hoisting
rope. Peterson sprang out upon it. "I'm going down before I get brushed
off," said Bannon.
"I'll be back at the office as soon as I get this corbel laid."
"No hurry. I want to look over the drawings. Go easy there," he called
to the engineer at the hoist; "I'm coming down on the elevator."
Peterson had already cast off the rope, but Bannon jumped for it and
thrust his foot into the hook, and the engineer, not knowing who he was,
let him down none too gently.
On his way to the office he spoke to two carpenters at work on a stick
of timber. "You'd better leave that, I guess, and get some four-inch
cribbing and some inch stuff and make some ladders; I guess there's
enough lying 'round for that. About four'll do."
It was no wonder that the Calumet K job had proved too much for
Peterson. It was difficult from the beginning. There was not enough
ground space to work in comfortably, and the proper bestowal of the
millions of feet of lumber until time for it to be used in the construction
was no mean problem. The elevator was to be a typical "Chicago"

house, built to receive grain from cars and to deliver it either to cars or
to ships. As has been said, it stood back from the river, and grain for
ships was to be carried on belt conveyors running in an inclosed bridge
above the railroad tracks to the small spouting house on the wharf. It
had originally been designed to have a capacity for twelve hundred
thousand bushels, but the grain men who were building it, Page &
Company, had decided after it was fairly started that it must be larger;
so, in the midst of his work, Peterson had received instructions and
drawings for a million bushel annex. He had done excellent
work--work satisfactory even to MacBride & Company--on a smaller
scale, and so he had been given the opportunity, the responsibility, the
hundreds of employees, the liberal authority, to make what he could of
it all.
There could be no doubt that he had made a tangle; that the big job as a
whole was not under his hand, but was just running itself as best