ddition to the elevator. The river house was no
higher than was necessary for the spouts that would drop the grain through
the hatchways of the big lake steamers, twenty thousand bushels an hour--
it reached between sixty and seventy feet above the water. The marine
tower that was to be built, twenty-four feet square, up through the centre
of the house, would be more than twice as high. A careful examination
convinced Bannon that the pile foundations would prove strong enough to
support this heavier structure, and that the only changes necessary would
be in the frame of the spouting house. On the same day that the plans
arrived, work on the tower commenced.

Peterson had about got to the point where startling developments no longer
alarmed him. He had seen the telegram the day before, but his first
information that a marine tower was actually under way came when Bannon
called off a group of laborers late in the afternoon to rig the "trolley"
for carrying timber across the track.

"What are you going to do, Charlie?" he called. "Got to slide them timbers
back again?"

"Some of 'em," Bannon replied.

"Don't you think we could carry 'em over?" said Peterson. "If we was quiet
about it, they needn't be any trouble?"

Bannon shook his head.

"We're not taking any more chances on this railroad. We haven't time."

Once more the heavy timbers went swinging through the air, high over the
tracks, but this time back to the wharf. Before long the section boss of
the C. & S. C. appeared, and though he soon went away, one of his men
remained, lounging about the tracks, keeping a close eye on the sagging
ropes and the timbers. Bannon, when he met Peterson a few minutes later,
pointed out the man.

"What'd I tell you, Pete? They're watching us like cats. If you want to
know what the C. & S. C. think about us, you just drop one timber and
you'll find out."

But nothing dropped, and when Peterson, who had been on hand all the
latter part of the afternoon, took hold, at seven o'clock, the first
timbers of the tower had been set in place, somewhere down inside the
rough shed of a spouting house, and more would go in during the night, and
during other days and nights, until the narrow framework should go
reaching high into the air. Another thing was recognized by the men at
work on that night shift, even by the laborers who carried timbers, and
grunted and swore in strange tongues; this was that the night shift men
had suddenly be