Calumet 'K' Part 21

"Mr. Grady, the man I drew a gun on was a carpenter. His own union is looking after him. He had thrown a hammer down into a bin where some of your laborers were at work, so I acted in their defence."

Grady stood up. "I come here to give you warning to-day, Mr. Bannon.

There is a watchful eye on you. The next time I come it will not be to warn, but to act. That's all I've got to say to you now."

Bannon, too, was on his feet. "Mr. Grady, we try to be fair to our men.

It's your business to see that we are fair, so we ought to get on all right together. After this, if the men lodge any complaint with you, come to me; don't go out on the job and make speeches. If you're looking for fair play, you'll get it. If you're looking for trouble, you'll get it. Good-morning."

The new _regime_ in operation at the elevator was more of a hardship to Peterson than to any one else, because it compelled him to be much alone. Not only was he quite cut off from the society of Max and Hilda, but it happened that the two or three under-foremen whom he liked best were on the day shift. The night's work with none of those pleasant little momentary interruptions that used to occur in the daytime was mere unrelieved drudgery, but the afternoons, when he had given up trying to sleep any longer, were tedious enough to make him long for six o'clock.

Naturally, his disposition was easy and generous, but he had never been in the habit of thinking much, and thinking, especially as it led to brooding, was not good for him. From the first, of course, he had been hurt that the office should have thought it necessary to send Bannon to supersede him, but so long as he had plenty to do and was in Bannon's company every hour of the day, he had not taken time to think about it much. But now he thought of little else, and as time went on he succeeded in twisting nearly everything the new boss had said or done to fit his theory that Bannon was jealous of him and was trying to take from him the credit which rightfully belonged to him. And Bannon had put him in charge of the night shift, so Peterson came to think, simply because he had seen that Hilda was beginning to like him.

About four o'clock one afternoon, not many days after Grady's talk with Bannon, Peterson sat on the steps of his boarding-house, trying to make up his mind what to do, and wishing it were six o'clock. He wanted to stroll down to the job to have a chat with his friends, but he had somewhat childishly decided he wasn't wanted there while Miss Vogel was in the office, so he sat still and whittled, and took another view of his grievances. Glancing up, he saw Grady, the walking delegate, coming along the sidewalk. Now that the responsibility of the elevator was off his shoulders he no longer cherished any particular animosity toward the little Irishman, but he remembered their last encounter and wondered whether he should speak to him or not.

But Grady solved his doubt by calling out cheerfully to know how he was and turning in toward the steps. "I suppose I ought to lick you after what's pa.s.sed between us," he added with a broad smile, "but if you're willing we'll call it bygones."

"Sure," said Peterson.

"It's fine seasonable weather we're having, and just the thing for you on the elevator. It's coming right along."

"First-rate."

"It's as interesting a bit of work as I ever saw. I was there the other day looking at it. And, by the way, I had a long talk with Mr. Bannon.

He's a fine man."

Grady had seated himself on the step below Peterson. Now for the first time he looked at him.

"He's a good hustler," said Peterson.

"Well, that's what pa.s.ses for a fine man, these days, though mistakes are sometimes made that way. But how does it happen that you're not down there superintending? I hope some carpenter hasn't taken it into his head to fire the boss."

"I'm not boss there any longer. The office sent Bannon down to take it over my head."

"You don't tell me that? It's a pity." Grady was shaking his head solemnly. "It's a pity. The men like you first-rate, Mr. Peterson. I'm not saying they don't like anybody else, but they like you. But people in an office a thousand miles away can't know everything, and that's a fact. And so he laid you off."

"Oh, no, I ain't quite laid off--yet. He's put me in charge of the night shift."

"So you're working nights, then? It seemed to me you was working fast enough in the daytime to satisfy anybody. But I suppose some rich man is in a hurry for it and you must do your best to accommodate him."

"You bet, he's in a hurry for it. He won't listen to reason at all. Says the bins have got to be chock full of grain before January first, no matter what happens to us. He don't care how much it costs, either."

"I must be going along," said Grady, getting to his feet. "That man must be in a hurry. January first! That's quick work, and he don't care how much it costs him. Oh, these rich devils! They're hustlers, too, Mr.

Peterson. Well, good-night to you."

Peterson saw Bannon twice every day,--for a half hour at night when he took charge of the job, and for another half hour in the morning when he relinquished it. That was all except when they chanced to meet during Bannon's irregular nightly wanderings about the elevator. As the days had gone by these conversations had been confined more and more rigidly to necessary business, and though this result was Peterson's own bringing about, still he charged it up as another of his grievances against Bannon.

When, about an hour after his conversation with Grady, he started down to the elevator to take command, he knew he ought to tell Bannon of his conversation with Grady, and he fully intended doing so. But his determination oozed away as he neared the office, and when he finally saw Bannon he decided to say nothing about it whatever. He decided thus partly because he wished to make his conversation with Bannon as short as possible, partly because he had not made up his mind what significance, if any, the incident had, and (more than either of these reasons) because ever since Grady had repeated the phrase: "He don't care what it costs him," Peterson had been uneasily aware that he had talked too much.

CHAPTER X

Grady's affairs were prospering beyond his expectations, confident though he had been. Away back in the summer, when the work was in its early stages, his eye had been upon it; he had bided his time in the somewhat indefinite hope that something would turn up. But he went away jubilant from his conversation with Peterson, for it seemed that all the cards were in his hands.

Just as a man running for a car is the safest mark for a gamin's s...o...b..ll, so Calumet K, through being a rush job as well as a rich one, offered a particularly advantageous field for Grady's endeavors. Men who were trying to accomplish the impossible feat of completing, at any cost, the great hulk on the river front before the first of January, would not be likely to stop to quibble at paying the five thousand dollars or so that Grady, who, as the business agent of his union was simply in masquerade, would like to extort.

He had heard that Peterson was somewhat disaffected to Bannon's authority, but had not expected him to make so frank an avowal of it.

That was almost as much in his favor as the necessity for hurry. These, with the hoist accident to give a color of respectability to the operation, ought to make it simple enough. He had wit enough to see that Bannon was a much harder man to handle than Peterson, and that with Peterson restored to full authority, the only element of uncertainty would be removed. And he thought that if he could get Peterson to help him it might be possible to secure Bannon's recall. If the scheme failed, he had still another shot in his locker, but this one was worth a trial, anyway.

One afternoon in the next week he went around to Peterson's boarding-house and sent up his card with as much ceremony as though the night boss had been a railway president.

"I hope you can spare me half an hour, Mr. Peterson. There's a little matter of business I'd like to talk over with you."

The word affected Peterson unpleasantly. That was a little farther than he could go without a qualm. "Sure," he said uneasily, looking at his watch.

"I don't know as I should call it business, either," Grady went on.

"When you come right down to it, it's a matter of friendship, for surely it's no business of mine. Maybe you think it's queer--I think it's queer myself, that I should be coming 'round tendering my friendly services to a man who's had his hands on my throat threatening my life. That ain't my way, but somehow I like you, Mr. Peterson, and there's an end of it.

And when I like a man, I like him, too. How's the elevator? Everything going to please you?"

"I guess it's going all right. It ain't----" Pete hesitated, and then gave up the broken sentence. "It's all right," he repeated.

Grady smiled. "There's the good soldier. Won't talk against his general.

But, Mr. Peterson, let me ask you a question; answer me as a man of sense. Which makes the best general--the man who leads the charge straight up to the intrenchments, yellin': 'Come on, boys!'--or the one who says, very likely shaking a revolver in their faces: 'Get in there, ye d.a.m.n low-down privates, and take that fort, and report to me when I've finished my breakfast'? Which one of those two men will the soldiers do the most for? For the one they like best, Mr. Peterson, and don't forget it. And which one of these are they going to like best, do you suppose--the brave leader who scorns to ask his men to go where he wouldn't go himself, who isn't ashamed to do honest work with honest hands, whose fists are good enough to defend him against his enemies; or the man who is afraid to go out among the men without a revolver in his hip pocket? Answer me as a man of sense, Mr. Peterson."

Peterson was manifestly disturbed by the last part of the harangue. Now he said: "Oh, I guess Bannon wasn't scared when he drawed that gun on Reilly. He ain't that kind."

"Would _you_ draw a gun on an unarmed, defenceless man?" Grady asked earnestly.

"No, I wouldn't. I don't like that way of doing."

"The men don't like it either, Mr. Peterson. No more than you do. They like you. They'll do anything you ask them to. They know that you can do anything that they can. But, Mr. Peterson, I'll be frank with you. They don't like the man who crowded you out. That's putting it mild. I won't say they hate him for an uncivil, hard-tongued, sneaking weasel of a spy----"

"I never knew Bannon to do anything like that," said Peterson, slowly.

"I did. Didn't he come sneaking up and hear what I was saying--up on top of the elevator the other day? I guess he won't try that again. I told him that when I was ready to talk to _him_, I'd come down to the office to do it."

Grady was going almost too far; Pete would not stand very much more; already he was trying to get on his feet to put an end to the conversation. "I ask your pardon, Mr. Peterson. I forgot he was a friend of yours. But the point is right here. The men don't like him. They've been wanting to strike these three days, just because they don't want to work for that ruffian. I soothed them all I can, but they won't hold in much longer. Mark my words, there'll be a strike on your hands before the week's out unless you do something pretty soon."

"What have they got to strike about? Don't we treat them all right? What do they kick about?"

"A good many things, big and little. But the real reason is the one I've been giving you--Bannon. Neither more nor less."

"Do you mean they'd be all right if another man was in charge?"

Grady could not be sure from Peterson's expression whether the ice were firm enough to step out boldly upon, or not. He tested it cautiously.

"Mr. Peterson, I know you're a good man. I know you're a generous man. I know you wouldn't want to crowd Bannon out of his shoes the way he crowded you out of yours; not even after the way he's treated you. But look here, Mr. Peterson. Who's your duty to? The men up in Minneapolis who pay your salary, or the man who has come down here and is giving orders over your head?