Calumet 'K' Part 28

Peterson turned to shout at some laborers, then he pushed back his hat and scratched his head.

"I don't know but what you'd ought to 'a' told Charlie right off. That man Grady don't mean us no good."

"I know it, but I wasn't just sure."

"Well, I'll tell you----"

Before Peterson could finish, Max broke in:--

"That's him."

"Where?"

"That fellow over there, walking along slow. He's the one that was with Grady."

"I'd like to know what he thinks he's doing here." Peterson started forward, adding, "I guess I know what to say to him."

"Hold on, Pete," said Max, catching his arm. "Maybe we'd better speak to Mr. Bannon. I'll go down and tell him, and you keep an eye on this fellow."

Peterson reluctantly a.s.sented, and Max walked slowly away, now and then pausing to look around at the men. But when he had nearly reached the stairway, where he could slip behind the scaffolding about the only scale hopper that had reached a man's height above the floor, he moved more rapidly. He met Bannon on the stairway, and told him what he had seen. Bannon leaned against the wall of the stairway bin, and looked thoughtful.

"So he's come, has he?" was his only comment. "You might speak to Pete, Max, and bring him here. I'll wait."

Max and Peterson found him looking over the work of the carpenters.

"I may not be around much to-night," he said, with a wink, "but I'd like to see both of you to-morrow afternoon some time. Can you get around about four o'clock, Pete?"

"Sure," the night boss replied.

"We've got some thinking to do about the work, if we're going to put it through. I'll look for you at four o'clock then, in the office." He started down the stairs. "I'm going home now."

"Why," said Peterson, "you only just come."

Bannon paused and looked back over his shoulder. The light came from directly overhead, and the upper part of his face was in the shadow of his hat brim, but Max, looking closely at him, thought that he winked again.

"I wanted to tell you," the foreman went on; "Grady's come around, you know--and another fellow----"

"Yes, Max told me. I guess they won't hurt you. Good night."

As he went on down he pa.s.sed a group of laborers who were bringing stairway material to the carpenters.

"I don't know but what you was talking pretty loud," said Max to Peterson, in a low voice. "Here's some of 'em now."

"They didn't hear nothing," Peterson replied, and the two went back to the distributing floor. They stood in a shadow, by the scale hopper, waiting for the reappearance of Grady's companion. He had evidently gone on to the upper floors, where he could not be distinguished from the many other moving figures; but in a few minutes he came back, walking deliberately toward the stairs. He looked at Peterson and Max, but pa.s.sed by without a second glance, and descended. Peterson stood looking after him.

"Now, I'd like to know what Charlie meant by going home," he said.

Max had been thinking hard. Finally he said:--

"Say, Pete, we're blind."

"Why?"

"Did you think he was going home?"

Peterson looked at him, but did not reply.

"Because he ain't."

"Well, you heard what he said."

"What does that go for? He was winking when he said it. He wasn't going to stand there and tell the laborers all about it, like we was trying to do. I'll bet he ain't very far off."

"I ain't got a word to say," said Peterson. "If he wants to leave Grady to me, I guess I can take care of him."

Max had come to the elevator for a short visit--he liked to watch the work at night--but now he settled down to stay, keeping about the hopper where he could see Grady if his head should appear at the top of the stairs. Something told him that Bannon saw deeper into Grady's man[oe]uvres than either Peterson or himself, and while he could not understand, yet he was beginning to think that Grady would appear before long, and that Bannon knew it.

Sure enough, only a few minutes had gone when Max turned back from a glance at the marine tower and saw the little delegate standing on the top step, looking about the distributing floor and up through the girders overhead, with quick, keen eyes. Then Max understood what it all meant: Grady had chosen a time when Bannon was least likely to be on the job; and had sent the other man ahead to reconnoitre. It meant mischief--Max could see that; and he felt a boy's nervousness at the prospect of excitement. He stepped farther back into the shadow.

Grady was looking about for Peterson; when he saw his burly figure outlined against a light at the farther end of the building, he walked directly toward him, not pausing this time to talk to the laborers or to look at them. Max, moving off a little to one side, followed, and reached Peterson's side just as Grady, his hat pushed back on his head and his feet apart, was beginning to talk.

"I had a little conversation with you the other day, Mr. Peterson. I called to see you in the interests of the men, the men that are working for you--working like galley slaves they are, every man of them. It's shameful to a man that's seen how they've been treated by the n.i.g.g.e.r drivers that stands over them day and night." He was speaking in a loud voice, with the fluency of a man who is carefully prepared. There was none of the bitterness or the ugliness in his manner that had slipped out in his last talk with Bannon, for he knew that a score of laborers were within hearing, and that his words would travel, as if by wire, from mouth to mouth about the building and the grounds below. "I stand here, Mr. Peterson, the man chosen by these slaves of yours, to look after their rights. I do not ask you to treat them with kindness, I do not ask that you treat them as gentlemen. What do I ask? I demand what's accorded to them by the Const.i.tution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, that says even a n.i.g.g.e.r has more rights than you've given to these men, the men that are putting money into your pocket, and Mr. Bannon's pocket, and the corporation's pocket, by the sweat of their brows. Look at them; will you look at them?" He waved his arm toward the nearest group, who had stopped working and were listening; and then, placing a cigar in his mouth and tilting it upward, he struck a match and sheltered it in his hands, looking over it for a moment at Peterson.

The night boss saw by this time that Grady meant business, that his speech was preliminary to something more emphatic, and he knew that he ought to stop it before the laborers should be demoralized.

"You can't do that here, Mister," said Max, over Peterson's shoulder, indicating the cigar.

Grady still held the match, and looked impudently across the tip of his cigar. Peterson took it up at once.

"You'll have to drop that," he said. "There's no smoking on this job."

The match had gone out, and Grady lighted another.

"So that's one of your rules, too?" he said, in the same loud voice.

"It's a wonder you let a man eat."

Peterson was growing angry. His voice rose as he talked.

"I ain't got time to talk to you," he said. "The insurance company says there can't be no smoking here. If you want to know why, you'd better ask them."

Grady blew out the match and returned the cigar to his pocket, with an air of satisfaction that Peterson could not make out.

"That's all right, Mr. Peterson. I didn't come here to make trouble. I come here as a representative of these men"--he waved again toward the laborers--"and I say right here, that if you'd treated them right in the first place, I wouldn't be here at all. I've wanted you to have a fair show. I've put up with your mean tricks and threats and insults ever since you begun--and why? Because I wouldn't delay you and hurt the work. It's the industries of to-day, the elevators and railroads, and the work of strong men like these that's the bulwark of America's greatness. But what do I get in return, Mister Peterson? I come up here as a gentleman and talk to you. I treat you as a gentleman. I overlook what you've showed yourself to be. And how do you return it? By talking like the blackguard you are--you knock an innocent cigar----"

"Your time's up!" said Pete, drawing a step nearer. "Come to business, or clear out. That's all I've got to say to you."

"All right, _Mister_ Peterson--_all_ right. I'll put up with your insults. I can afford to forget myself when I look about me at the heavier burdens these men have to bear, day and night. Look at that--look at it, and then try to talk to me."