tting into my
work."

Bannon looked quizzically down at him.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said slowly. "Just look
around at this gang of men--you know the likes of them as well as I do--
and then talk to me about bringing a girl on the job." He shook his head.
"I reckon it's some one you're interested in."

"Yes," said Max, "it's my sister."

Max evidently did not intend to be turned off. As he stood awaiting a
reply--his broad, flat features, his long arms and bow legs with their
huge hands and feet, his fringe of brick-red hair cropping out behind his
cap, each contributing to the general appearance of utter homeliness--a
faint smile came over Bannon's face. The half-formed thought was in his
mind, "If she looks anything like that, I guess she's safe." He was silent
for a moment, then he said abruptly:--

"When can she start?"

"Right away."

"All right. We'll try it for a day or so and see how it goes. Tell that
boy in the office that he can charge his time up to Saturday night, but he
needn't stay around any longer."

Max hurried away. Group after group of laborers, peavies or cant-hooks on
shoulders, were moving slowly past him toward the wharf. It was already
nearly dark, and the arc lights on the elevator structure, and on the
spouting house, beyond the tracks, were flaring. He started toward the
wharf, walking behind a score of the laborers.

From the east, over the flats and marshes through which the narrow,
sluggish river wanders to Lake Michigan, came the hoarse whistle of a
steamer. Bannon turned and looked. His view was blocked by some freight
cars that were standing on the C. & S. C. tracks at some distance to the
east. He ran across the tracks and out on the wharf, climbing on the
timber pile, where Peterson and his gang were, rolling down the big sticks
with cant-hooks. Not a quarter of a mile away was a big steamer, ploughing
slowly up the river; the cough of her engines and the swash of the
churning water at her bow and stern could be plainly heard. Peterson
stopped work for a moment, and joined him.

"Well," Bannon said, "we're in for it now. I never thought they'd make
such time as this."

"She can lay up here all night till morning, I guess."

Bannon was thinking hard.

"No," he finally said, "she can't. There ain't any use of wasting all day
tomorrow unloading that cribbing and getting it across."

Peterson, too, was thinking; and his eyebrows were coming togeth