ssed it to one side.

"Miss Vogel," he said, pushing his chair back, "didn't you ask me
something just now?"

"It was about getting the cribbing across the lake," she replied. "I
don't see how you did it."

Her interest in the work pleased Bannon.

"It ain't a bad story. You see the farmers up in that country hate the
railroads. It's the tariff rebate, you know. They have to pay more to
ship their stuff to market than some places a thousand miles farther
off. And I guess the service is pretty bad all around. I was figuring on
something like that as soon as I had a look at things. So we got up a
poster and had it printed, telling what they all think of the G. &
M."--he paused, and his eyes twinkled--"I wouldn't mind handing one to
that Superintendent just for the fun of seeing him when he read it. It
told the farmers to come around to Sloan's lumber yard with their
wagons."

"And you carried it across in the wagons?"

"I guess we did."

"Isn't it a good ways?"

"Eighteen to thirty miles, according to who you ask. As soon as things
got to going we went after the General Manager and gave him a bad half
hour; so I shouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the bill coming in
by rail any time now."

Bannon got up and slowly buttoned his coat. He was looking about the
office, at the mud-tracked floor and the coated windows, and at the
hanging shreds of spider web in the corners and between the rafters
overhead.

"It ain't a very cheerful house to live in all day, is it?" he said. "I
don't know but what we'd better clean house a little. There's not much
danger of putting a shine on things that'll hurt your eyes. We ought to
be able to get hold of some one that could come in once in a while and
stir up the dust. Do you know of any one?"

"There is a woman that comes to our boarding-house. I think they know
about her at the hotel."

He went to the telephone and called up the hotel.

"She'll be here this afternoon," he said as he hung up the receiver.
"Will she bring her own scrubbing things, or are we supposed to have
them for her? This is some out of my line."

Miss Vogel was smiling.

"She'll have her own things, I guess. When she comes, would you like me
to start her to work?"

"If you'd just as soon. And tell her to make a good job of it. I've got
to go out now, but I'll be around off and on during the day."

When the noon whistle blew Bannon and Max were standing near the annex.
Already the bins and w