ong
the glowing rivets, and the buffer-man slip them through ready holes,
and the hammer-man flatten the flaming ends into smooth, burnished
heads. And presently a riveter in black cap and faded blue jersey
climbed down from the swing overhead, and explained things to us. He did
this out of sheer good nature, I think, although he may have been
curious to know what two men with derby hats and kodaks were doing up
there. We watched his descent in wonder and alarm, for it involved some
lively gymnastics, that he entered upon, however, with complete
indifference. First he swung across from the scaffolding to a girder,
the highest rail of the bridge, and along this walked as coolly as a boy
on a wide fence-top, only this happened to be a fence one hundred and
fifty feet high. Then he bent over and caught one of the slanting side
supports, and down this worked his way as a mountain-climber would work
down a precipice. Presently he stepped off at our level, never having
taken the pipe from his mouth.

[Illustration: WARMING THEIR LUNCHES AT THE BOILER-FIRE.]

[Illustration: A STRANGE WAY TO GO TO MEALS.]

When we asked how he dared go about so carelessly over a reeling abyss,
he said they all did it; they all got used to it, or else got killed.
Why, when the whistle blew we'd see men swinging and sliding and
twisting their way down like a lot of circus performers. That's how they
came to dinner; that's how they got back aloft. No, sir; they couldn't
use life-lines; they moved about too much. Besides, what good would a
life-line be to a man if the "falls" started at him with a ten-ton
load, yes, or a twenty-ton load? That man has got to skip along pretty
lively, sir, or he'll get hurt. Did he mean skip along over this web of
boards and girders? I inquired. He certainly did, and we'd see plenty of
it, if we stayed up long. The artist and I shook our heads as we looked
down that skeleton roadway, gaping open everywhere between girders and
planks, in little gulfs, ten feet wide, five feet wide, two feet wide,
quite wide enough to make the picture of a man skipping over them a very
solemn thing.

Our friend went on to tell us how the riveters often get into tight
places, say on the tower, where there is so little room for the
forge-man to heat his bolts that he has to throw them up to the
hammer-man, twenty or thirty feet.

"What!" exclaimed the artist. "Throw red-hot bolts twenty or thirty feet
up the tower!"

"That's what