et and rain. James, the new delegate, came to Bannon and pointed out
that men who are continually drenched to the skin are not the best
workmen. The boss met the delegate fairly; he ordered an oilskin coat for
every man on the job, and in another day they swarmed over the building,
looking, at a distance, like glistening yellow beetles.

But if Chicago was thawing, Duluth was not. The harbor at the western end
of Lake Superior was ice-bound, and it finally reached a point that the
tugs could not break open the channel. This was on the twenty-third and
twenty-fourth. The wires were hot, but Page's agents succeeded in covering
the facts until Christmas Day. It was just at dusk, after leaving the men
to take down the cable, that Bannon went to the office.

A newsboy had been on the grounds with a special edition of a cheap
afternoon paper. Hilda had taken one, and when Bannon entered the office
he found her reading, leaning forward on the desk, her chin on her hands,
the paper spread out over the ledger.

"Hello," he said, throwing off his dripping oilskin, and coming into the
enclosure; "I'm pretty near ready to sit down and think about the
Christmas tree that we ain't going to have."

She looked up, and he saw that she was a little excited; her eyes always
told him. During this last week she had been carrying the whole
responsibility of the work on her shoulders.

"Have you seen this?" she asked.

"Haven't read a paper this week." He leaned over the desk beside her and
read the article. In Duluth harbor, and at St. Mary's straits, a channel
through the ice had been blasted out with dynamite, and the last laden
steamer was now ploughing down Lake Michigan. Already one steamer was
lying at the wharf by the marine tower, waiting for the machinery to
start, and others lay behind her, farther down the river. Long strings of
box cars filled the Belt Line sidings, ready to roll into the elevator at
the word.

Bannon seated himself on the railing, and caught his toes between the
supports.

"I'll tell you one thing," he said, "those fellows have got to get up
pretty early in the morning if they're going to beat old Page."

She looked at him, and then slowly folded the paper and turned toward the
window. It was nearly dark outside. The rain, driving down from the
northeast, tapped steadily on the glass. The arc lamp, on the pole near
the tool house, was a blurred circle of light. She was thinking that they
would have to