the morning, Bannon figured, the engine would be
lifting timbers instead of bundles of cribbing.

There was a chill wind, up there on the top of the elevator, coming
across the flats out of the glowing sunset. But Bannon let his coat flap
open, as he gave a hand now and then to help the men. He liked to feel
the wind tugging at sleeves and cap, and he leaned against it,
bare-throated and bare-handed--bare-headed, too, he would have been had
not a carpenter, rods away on the cribbing, put out a hand to catch his
cap as it tried to whirl past on a gust. The river wound away toward the
lake, touched with the color of the sky, to lose itself half a mile away
among the straggling rows of factories and rolling mills. From the
splendid crimson of the western sky to the broken horizon line of South
Chicago, whose buildings hid Lake Michigan, the air was crisp and clear;
but on the north, over the dim shops and blocks of houses that grew
closer together as the eye went on, until spires and towers and gray
walls were massed in confusion, hung a veil of smoke, like a black
cloud, spreading away farther than eye could see. This was Chicago.

Bannon climbed to the ground and took a last look about the work before
going to the office. The annex was growing slowly but surely; and
Peterson, coatless and hatless as usual, with sleeves rolled up, was at
work with the men, swinging a hammer here, impatiently shouldering a
bundle of planks there. And Bannon saw more clearly what he had known
before, that Peterson was a good man when kept within his limitations.
Certainly the annex could not have been better started.

When Bannon entered the office, Miss Vogel handed him a sheet of paper.
He came in through the gate and stood at the desk beside her to have the
light of the lamp. It was a balance sheet, giving the results of her
examination of the books.

"All right, eh?" he said. A glance had been enough to show him that
hereafter there would be no confusion in the books; the cashier of a
metropolitan bank could not have issued a more businesslike statement.
He tossed it on the desk, saying, "You might file it."

Then he took time to look about the office. It was as clean as
blackened, splintered planks could be made; even the ceiling had been
attacked and every trace of cobweb removed.

"Well," he said, "this is business. And we'll keep it this way, too."

She had faced about on the stool and was looking at him with a twinkle
in he