'Can't get the cars!' What sort of a railroad have
they got up there?"

"Max, here, can tell you about that, I guess," said Peterson.

"It's the G. & M.," said the lumber checker. "That's enough for any one
who's lived in Michigan. It ain't much good."

"How long have they kept 'em waiting for the cars?"

"How long is it, Max?" asked Peterson.

"Let's see. It was two weeks ago come Tuesday."

"Sure?"

"Yes. We got the letter the same day the red-headed man came here. His
hair was good and red." Max laughed broadly at the recollection. "He
came into the office just as we was reading it."

"Oh, yes. My friend, the walking delegate."

"What's that?" Bannon snapped the words out so sharply that Peterson
looked at him in slow surprise.

"Oh, nothing," he said. "A darn little rat of a red-headed walking
delegate came out here--had a printed card with Business Agent on
it--and poked his long nose into other people's business for a while,
and asked the men questions, and at last he came to me. I told him that
we treated our men all right and didn't need no help from him, and if I
ever caught him out here again I'd carry him up to the top of the jim
pole and leave him there. He went fast enough."

"I wish he'd knocked you down first, to even things up," said Bannon.

"Him! Oh, I could have handled him with three fingers."

"I'm going out for a look around," said Bannon, abruptly.

He left Peterson still smiling good-humoredly over the incident.

It was not so much to look over the job as to get where he could work
out his wrath that Bannon left the office. There was no use in trying to
explain to Peterson what he had done, for even if he could be made to
understand, he could undo nothing. Bannon had known a good many walking
delegates, and he had found them, so far, square. But it would be a
large-minded man who could overlook what Peterson had done. However,
there was no help for it. All that remained was to wait till the
business agent should make the next move.

So Bannon put the whole incident out of his mind, and until noon
inspected the job in earnest. By the time the whistle blew, every one of
the hundreds of men on the job, save Peterson himself, knew that there
was a new boss. There was no formal assumption of authority; Bannon's
supremacy was established simply by the obvious fact that he was the man
who knew how. Systematizing the confusion in one corner, showing another
gang how to save handling a