natural
mistake of driving the very large force employed on the elevator with
much too loose a rein. The men were still further demoralized by the
episode with the walking delegate, Grady, on Thursday night. Bannon knew
too much to attempt halfway measures, so he waited for a case of
insubordination serious enough to call for severe treatment.

When he happened into the office about the middle of Saturday morning,
Miss Vogel handed him two letters addressed to him personally. One was
from Brown,--the last paragraph of it as follows:--

Young Page has told MacBride in so many words what we've all been
guessing about, that is, that they are fighting to break the corner
in December wheat. They have a tremendous short line on the Chicago
Board, and they mean to deliver it. Twenty-two hundred thousand has
got to be in the bins there at Calumet before the first of January
unless the Day of Judgment happens along before then. Never mind
what it costs you.

BROWN.

P.S. MacBride has got down an atlas and is trying to figure out how
you got that cribbing to the lake. I told him you put the barge on
rollers and towed it up to Ledyard with a traction engine.

The letter from Sloan was to the effect that twelve cars were at that
moment on the yard siding, loading with cribbing, and that all of it,
something more than eighteen hundred thousand feet, would probably be in
Chicago within a week. A note was scribbled on the margin in Sloan's
handwriting. "Those fool farmers are still coming in expecting a job.
One is out in the yard now. Came clear from Victory. I've had to send
out a man to take down the posters."

"That's just like a farmer," Bannon said to Miss Vogel. "Time don't
count with him. To-morrow morning or two weeks from next Tuesday--he
can't see the difference. I suppose if one of those posters on an
inconspicuous tree happens to be overlooked that some old fellow'll come
driving in next Fourth of July."

He buttoned his coat as though going out, but stood looking at her
thoughtfully awhile. "All the same," he said, "I'd like to be that way
myself; never do anything till to-morrow. I'm going to turn farmer some
day. Once I get this job done, I'd like to see the man who can hurry me.
I'll say to MacBride: 'I'm willing to work on nice, quiet, easy little
jobs that never have to be finished. I'll want to sit at the desk and
whittle most of the time. But if you e