ation; but MacBride made no
apologies when he assigned him the new task--"Go down and stop this
fiddling around and get the house built. See that it's handling grain
before you come away. If you can't do it, I'll come down and do it
myself."

Bannon shook his head dubiously. "Well, I'm not sure----" he began. But
MacBride laughed, whereupon Bannon grinned in spite of himself. "All
right," he said.

It was no laughing matter, though, here on the job this Monday morning,
and, once alone in the little section house, he shook his head again
gravely. He liked Peterson too well, for one thing, to supersede him
without a qualm. But there was nothing else for it, and he took off his
overcoat, laid aside the coupling pin, and attacked the stack of blue
prints.

He worked rapidly, turning now and then from the plans for a reference
to the building book or the specifications, whistling softly, except
when he stopped to growl, from force of habit, at the office, or, with
more reasonable disapproval, at the man who made the drawings for the
annex. "Regular damn bird cage," he called it.

It was half an hour before Peterson came in. He was wiping the sweat off
his forehead with the back of his hand, and drawing long breaths with
the mere enjoyment of living. "I feel good," he said. "That's where I'd
like to work all day. You ought to go up and sledge them timbers for a
while. That'd warm you through, I bet."

"You ought to make your timekeeper give you one of those brass checks
there and pay you eighteen cents an hour for that work. That's what I'd
do."

Peterson laughed. It took more than a hint to reach him. "I have to do
it. Those laborers are no good. Honest, I can lift as much as any three
men on the job."

"That's all right if those same three don't stop to swap lies while
you're lifting."

"Well, I guess they don't come any of that on me," said Peterson,
laughing again. "How long are you going to stay with us?"

The office, then, had not told him. Bannon was for a moment at a loss
what to say. Luckily there was an interruption. The red-headed young man
he had spoken to an hour before came in, tossed a tally board on the
desk, and said that another carload of timber had come in.

"Mr. Bannon," said Peterson, "shake hands with Mr. Max Vogel, our lumber
checker." That formality attended to, he turned to Bannon and repeated
his question. By that time the other had his answer ready.

"Oh, it all depends on the office