Calumet 'K' Part 18

"The view ain't bad," he went on, "when you get up there. You can see down into Indiana, and all around. You could see all Chicago, too, if it wasn't for the smoke."

There was a moment's silence.

"Why, yes, Mr. Bannon," she said; "I'd like to go very much."

"All right," he replied, his smile returning. "I'll guarantee to get you up there somehow, if I have to build a stairway. Ninety feet's pretty high, you know."

When Bannon reached the elevator he stood for a moment in the well at the west end of the structure. This well, or "stairway bin," sixteen by thirty-two feet, and open from the ground to the distributing floor, occupied the s.p.a.ce of two bins. It was here that the stairway would be, and the pa.s.senger elevator, and the rope-drive for the transmission of power from the working to the distributing floor. The stairway was barely indicated by rude landings. For the present a series of eight ladders zigzagged up from landing to landing. Bannon began climbing; halfway up he met Max, who was coming down, time book in hand.

"Look here, Max," he said, "we're going to have visitors this afternoon.

If you've got a little extra time I'd like to have you help get things ready."

"All right," Max replied. "I'm not crowded very hard to-day."

"I've asked your sister to come up and see the framing."

Max glanced down between the loose boards on the landing.

"I don't know," he said slowly; "I don't believe she could climb up here very well."

"She won't have to. I'm going to put in a pa.s.senger elevator, and carry her up as grand as the Palmer House. You put in your odd minutes between now and three o'clock making a box that's big and strong enough."

Max grinned.

"Say, that's all right. She'll like that. I can do most of it at noon."

Bannon nodded and went on up the ladders. At the distributing floor he looked about for a long timber, and had the laborers lay it across the well opening. The ladders and landings occupied only about a third of the s.p.a.ce; the rest was open, a clear drop of eighty feet.

At noon he found Max in an open s.p.a.ce behind the office, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g iron rings into the corners of a stout box. Max glanced up and laughed.

"I made Hilda promise not to come out here," he said. He waved his hand toward the back wall of the office. Bannon saw that he had nailed strips over the larger cracks and knot holes. "She was peeking, but I shut that off before I'd got very far along. I don't think she saw what it was. I only had part of the frame done."

"She'll be coming out in a minute," said Bannon.

"I know. I thought of that." Max threw an armful of burlap sacking over the box. "That'll cover it up enough. I guess it's time to quit, anyway, if I'm going to get any dinner. There's a little square of carpet up to the house that I'm going to get for the bottom, and we can run pieces of half-inch rope from the rings up to a hook, and sling it right on the hoist."

"It's not going on the hoist," said Bannon. "I wouldn't stop the timbers for Mr. MacBride himself. When you go back, you'll see a timber on the top of the well. I'd like you to sling a block under it and run an inch-and-a-quarter rope through. We'll haul it up from below."

"What power?"

"Man power."

"All right, Mr. Bannon. I'll see to it. There's Hilda now."

He called to her to wait while he got his coat, and then the two disappeared across the tracks. Hilda had bowed to Bannon, but without the smile and the nod that he liked. He looked after her as if he would follow; but he changed his mind, and waited a few minutes.

The "elevator" was ready soon after the afternoon's work had commenced.

Bannon found time between two and three o'clock to inspect the tackle.

He picked up an end of rope and lashed the cross timber down securely.

Then he went down the ladders and found Max, who had brought the carpet for the box and was looking over his work. The rope led up to the top of the well through a pulley and then back to the working floor and through another pulley, so that the box could be hoisted from below.

"It's all ready," said Max. "It'll run up as smooth as you want."

"You'd better go for your sister, then," Bannon replied.

Max hesitated.

"You meant for me to bring her?"

"Yes, I guess you might as well."

Bannon stood looking after Max as he walked along the railroad track out into the open air. Then he glanced up between the smooth walls of cribbing that seemed to draw closer and closer together until they ended, far overhead, in a rectangle of blue sky. The beam across the top was a black line against the light. The rope, hanging from it, swayed lazily. He walked around the box, examining the rings and the four corner ropes, and testing them.

Hilda was laughing when she came with Max along the track. Bannon could not see her at first for the intervening rows of timbers that supported the bins. Then she came into view through an opening between two "bents"

of timber, beyond a heap of rubbish that had been thrown at one side of the track. She was trying to walk on the rail, one arm thrown out to balance, the other resting across Max's shoulders. Her jacket was b.u.t.toned snugly up to the chin, and there was a fresh color in her face.

Bannon had called in three laborers to man the rope; they stood at one side, awaiting the order to haul away. He found a block of wood, and set it against the box for a step.

"This way, Miss Vogel," he called. "The elevator starts in a minute. You came pretty near being late."

"Am I going to get in that?" she asked; and she looked up, with a little gasp, along the dwindling rope.

"Here," said Max, "don't you say nothing against that elevator. I call it pretty grand."

She stood on the block, holding to one of the ropes, and looking alternately into the box and up to the narrow sky above them.

"It's awfully high," she said. "Is that little stick up there all that's going to hold me up?"

"That little stick is ten-by-twelve," Max replied. "It would hold more'n a dozen of you."

She laughed, but still hesitated. She lowered her eyes and looked about the great dim s.p.a.ce of the working story with its long aisles and its solid ma.s.ses of timber. Suddenly she turned to Bannon, who was standing at her side, waiting to give her a hand.

"Oh, Mr. Bannon," she said, "are you sure it's strong enough? It doesn't look safe."

"I think it's safe," he replied quietly. He vaulted into the box and signalled to the laborers. Hilda stepped back off the block as he went up perhaps a third of the way, and then came down. She said nothing, but stepped on the block.

"How shall I get in?" she asked, laughing a little, but not looking at Bannon.

"Here," said Bannon, "give us each a hand. A little jump'll do it. Max here'll go along the ladders and steady you if you swing too much. Wait a minute, though." He hurried out of doors, and returned with a light line, one end of which he made fast to the box, the other he gave to Max.

"Now," he said, "you can guide it as nice as walking upstairs."

They started up, Hilda sitting in the box and holding tightly to the sides, Max climbing the ladders with the end of the line about his wrist. Bannon joined the laborers, and kept a hand on the hoisting rope.

"You'd better not look down," he called after her.

She laughed and shook her head. Bannon waited until they had reached the top, and Max had lifted her out on the last landing; then, at Max's shout, he made the rope fast and followed up the ladders.