Calumet 'K' Part 12

"It's right here--you're trying to make money by putting on one man to do the work of two."

"How?"

Bannon's quiet manner exasperated the delegate.

"Use your eyes, man--you can't make eight men carry a twelve-by-fourteen stick."

"How many shall I put on?"

"Ten."

"All right."

"And you'd better put eight men on the other sticks."

The delegate looked up, nettled that Bannon should yield so easily.

"That's all right," said Bannon. "We aren't fighting the union. After this, if you've got anything to say, I wish you'd come to me with it before you call off the men. Is there anything else before I start up?"

Grady was chewing the stub of a cigar. He stood looking about with an ugly air, then he said:--

"You ain't starting up just yet."

"Why not?"

The delegate's reply was lost in the shout that suddenly went up from the western end of the line of laborers. Then came the sound of a locomotive bell and exhaust. Bannon started down the track, jumping the timbers as he ran, toward Vogel's lantern, that was bobbing along toward him. The train had stopped, but now it was puffing slowly forward, throwing a bright light along the rails.

"It's a C. & S. C. local," Max shouted. "Can't we clear up the right track?"

Bannon stopped and looked around. About half of the men had followed him, and were strung out in irregular groups between him and the timbers. Walking up between the groups came the delegate, with two men, chewing his cigar in silence as he walked. The train was creeping along, the fireman leaning far out of the cab window, closely scanning the track for signs of an obstruction. On the steps between the cars a few pa.s.sengers were trying to get a view up the track; and others were running along beside the train.

"This has gone too far," Bannon muttered. He turned and shouted to the men: "Clear up that track. Quick, now!"

Some of the men started, but stopped, and all looked at the delegate. He stepped to one side and coolly looked over the train; then he raised his hand.

"Don't touch the timbers," he said. "It ain't a mail train."

His voice was not loud, but those near at hand pa.s.sed the word along, and the long line of men stood motionless. By that time the train had stopped, and three of the crew had come forward. They saw the timbers on the track and hurried toward them, but the delegate called out:--

"Watch those sticks, boys! Don't let a man touch them!"

There was no hesitation when the delegate spoke in that tone. A score of men blocked the way of the train crew.

Bannon was angry. He stood looking at Grady with snapping eyes, and his hands closed into knotted fists. But Bannon knew the power of the unions, and he knew that a rash step now might destroy all hope of completing the elevator in time. He crossed over to the delegate.

"What do you want?" he said gruffly.

"Nothing from you."

"What do you want?" Bannon repeated, and there was something in his voice that caused the delegate to check a second retort.

"You'll kill these men if you work them like this. They've been on the job all day."

Bannon was beginning to see that Grady was more eager to make trouble than to uphold the cause of the men he was supposed to represent. In his experience with walking delegates he had not met this type before. He was proud of the fact that he had never had any serious trouble in dealing with his workmen or their representatives. Mr. MacBride was fond of saying that Bannon's tact in handling men was unequalled; but Bannon himself did not think of it in this way--to him, trouble with the laborers or the carpenters or the millwrights meant loss of time and loss of money, the two things he was putting in his time to avoid; and until now he had found the maligned walking delegate a fair man when he was fairly dealt with. So he said:--

"Well, what are you asking?"

"These gangs ought to be relieved every two hours."

"I'll do it. Now clear up those timbers."

The delegate turned with a scowl, and waved the men back to their work.

In a moment the track was clear, and the train was moving slowly onward between the long lines of men.

Bannon started the gangs at work. When the timbers were again coming across from the wharf in six slowly moving streams that converged at the end of the elevator, he stood looking after the triangle of red lights on the last car of the train until they had grown small and close together in the distance. Then he went over to the wharf to see how much timber remained, and to tell Peterson to hurry the work; for he did not look for any further accommodation on the part of the C. & S. C.

railroad, now that a train had been stopped. The steamer lay quietly at the dock, the long pile of cribbing on her deck shadowed by the high bow deckhouse from the lights on the spouting house. Her crew were bustling about, rigging the two hoisting engines, and making all ready for unloading when the order should be given.

Peterson had been working through the timber pile from the sh.o.r.e side, so that now only a thin wall remained at the outer edge of the wharf.

Bannon found him standing on the pile, rolling down the sticks with a peavey to where the carrying gangs could pick them up.

"Better bring all your men up here, Pete, and clean it all away by the steamer. She may as well begin unloading now."

Bannon walked back to the tracks, in time to see a handcar and trailer, packed with men, come up the track and stop near at hand. The men at once scattered, and brushing aside Bannon's laborers, they began replacing the sections of fence. Bannon crossed to the section boss, who recognized him and without comment handed him a telegraphed order.

"There's no getting around that," he said, when Bannon had read it.

"That's straight from the old man."

Bannon returned it, called Peterson, and hurried with him around the elevator to find Max, who was overseeing the piling.

"What'll we do?" Peterson asked, as they ran; but Bannon made no reply until the three were together. Then he said, speaking shortly:--

"Get the wire cable off one of your hoisting engines, Pete, and make one end fast as high as you can on the spouting house. We'll run it across the tracks, on a slope, down to this side. Max, you get a light rope and a running block, and hang a hook on it."

"I see," said Max, eagerly. "You're going to run it over on a trolley."

"Yes. The engineers have gone, haven't they?"

"Went at five," said Peterson.

"That's all right. We'll only need the hoist at the spouting house. The rest of it's just plain sliding down hill."

"But who'll run it?"

"I will. Pete, you get up on the spouting house and see that they're started down. Max will stay over here and watch the piling. Now rush it."

Half an hour had gone before the cable could be stretched from the spouting house, high over the tracks, down to the elevator structure, and before the hoisting engine could be got under steam. Meanwhile, for the third time since five o'clock, the laborers stood about, grumbling and growing more impatient. But at last it was all under way. The timbers were hoisted lightly up the side of the spouting house, hooked to the travelling block, and sent whirling down to Max's waiting hands, to be s.n.a.t.c.hed away and piled by the men. But compared with the other method, it was slow work, and Bannon found that, for lack of employment, it was necessary to let half of the men go for the night.

Soon, to the rattle of blocks and the tramping of feet and the calling and shouting of men, was added the creak of the steamer's hoists, and the groan of her donkey engines as her crew began the work of dumping out the cribbing by hand and steam, on the cleared s.p.a.ce on the wharf.

And then, when the last big stick had gone over, Peterson began sending bundles of two-inch cribbing. Before the work was finished, and the last plank from the steamer's cargo had been tossed on the pile by the annex, the first faint color was spreading over the eastern sky, and the damp of a low-country morning was in the air.