Calumet K | Page 5

Peterson and Vogel came into the office a few minutes later.
"Writing a letter to your girl?" said Peterson, jocularly.
"We ought to have a stenographer out here, Pete."
"Stenographer! I didn't know you was such a dude. You'll be wanting a
solid silver electric bell connecting with the sody fountain next."
"That's straight," said Bannon. "We ought to have a stenographer for a
fact."
He said nothing until he had finished and sealed the two letters he was
writing. They were as follows:--
DEAR MR. BROWN: It's a mess and no mistake. I'm glad Mr.
MacBride didn't come to see it. He'd have fits. The whole job is tied up
in a hard knot. Peterson is wearing out chair bottoms waiting for the
cribbing from Ledyard. I expect we will have a strike before long. I
mean it.
The main house is most up to the distributing floor. The spouting house
is framed. The annex is up as far as the bottom, waiting for cribbing.

Yours, BANNON.
P.S. I hope this letter makes you sweat to pay you for last Saturday
night. I am about dead. Can't get any sleep. And I lost thirty-two
pounds up to Duluth. I expect to die down here. C. B.
P.S. I guess we'd better set fire to the whole damn thing and collect the
insurance and skip. C.
The other was shorter.
MACBRIDE & COMPANY, Minneapolis:
Gentlemen: I came on the Calumet job today. Found it held up by
failure of cribbing from Ledyard. Will have at least enough to work
with by end of the week. We will get the house done according to
specifications.
Yours truly, MACBRIDE & COMPANY. CHARLES BANNON.
CHAPTER II
The five o'clock whistle had sounded, and Peterson sat on the bench
inside the office door, while Bannon washed his hands in the tin basin.
The twilight was already settling; within the shanty, whose dirty,
small-paned windows served only to indicate the lesser darkness
without, a wall lamp, set in a dull reflector, threw shadows into the
corners.
"You're, coming up with me, ain't you?" said Peterson. "I don't believe
you'll get much to eat. Supper's just the pickings from dinner."
"Well, the dinner was all right. But I wish you had a bigger bed. I ain't
slept for two nights."
"What was the matter?"
"I was on the sleeper last night; and I didn't get in from the Duluth job

till seven o'clock Saturday night, and Brown was after me before I'd got
my supper. Those fellows at the office wouldn't let a man sleep at all if
they could help it. Here I'd been working like a nigger 'most five
months on the Duluth house--and the last three weeks running night
shifts and Sundays; didn't stop to eat, half the time--and what does
Brown do but-- 'Well,' he says, 'how're you feeling, Charlie?'
'Middling,' said I. 'Are you up to a little job tomorrow?' 'What's that?' I
said. 'Seems to me if I've got to go down to the Calumet job Sunday
night I might have an hour or so at home.' 'Well, Charlie,' he says, 'I'm
mighty sorry, but you see we've been putting in a big rope drive on a
water-power plant over at Stillwater. We got the job on the high bid,' he
says, 'and we agreed to have it running on Monday morning. It'll play
the devil with us if we can't make good.' 'What's the matter?' said I.
'Well,' he says, 'Murphy's had the job and has balled himself up.'"
By this time the two men had their coats on, and were outside the
building.
"Let's see," said Bannon, "we go this way, don't we?"
"Yes."
There was still the light, flying flakes of snow, and the biting wind that
came sweeping down from the northwest. The two men crossed the
siding, and, picking their way between the freight cars on the Belt Line
tracks, followed the path that wound across the stretch of dusty
meadow.
"Go ahead," said Peterson; "you was telling about Murphy."
"Well, that was the situation. I could see that Brown was up on his hind
legs about it, but it made me tired, all the same. Of course the job had
to be done, but I wasn't letting him have any satisfaction. I told him he
ought to give it to somebody else, and he handed me a lot of stuff about
my experience. Finally I said: 'You come around in the morning, Mr.
Brown. I ain't had any sleep to speak of for three weeks. I lost
thirty-two pounds,' I said, 'and I ain't going to be bothered tonight.'
Well, sir, he kind of shook his head, but he went away, and I got to

thinking about it. Long about half-past seven I went down and got