chances on this railroad. We haven't time."

Once more the heavy timbers went swinging through the air, high over the
tracks, but this time back to the wharf. Before long the section boss of
the C. & S. C. appeared, and though he soon went away, one of his men
remained, lounging about the tracks, keeping a close eye on the sagging
ropes and the timbers. Bannon, when he met Peterson a few minutes later,
pointed out the man.

"What'd I tell you, Pete? They're watching us like cats. If you want to
know what the C. & S. C. think about us, you just drop one timber and
you'll find out."

But nothing dropped, and when Peterson, who had been on hand all the
latter part of the afternoon, took hold, at seven o'clock, the first
timbers of the tower had been set in place, somewhere down inside the
rough shed of a spouting house, and more would go in during the night,
and during other days and nights, until the narrow framework should go
reaching high into the air. Another thing was recognized by the men at
work on that night shift, even by the laborers who carried timbers, and
grunted and swore in strange tongues; this was that the night shift men
had suddenly begun to feel a most restless energy crowding them on, and
they worked nearly as well as Bannon's day shifts. For Peterson's
spirits had risen with a leap, once the misunderstanding that had been
weighing on him had been removed, and now he was working as he had never
worked before. The directions he gave showed that his head was clearer;
and there was confidence in his manner.

Hilda was so serious all day after her talk with Bannon that once, in
the afternoon, when he came into the office for a glance at the new pile
of blue prints, he smiled, and asked if she were laying out a campaign.
It was the first work of the kind that she had ever undertaken, and she
was a little worried over the need for tact and delicacy. After she had
closed her desk at supper time, she saw Bannon come into the circle of
the electric light in front of the office, and, asking Max to wait, she
went to meet him.

"Well," he said, "are you loaded up to fight the 'power of the union'?"

She smiled, and then said, with a trace of nervousness:--

"I don't believe I'm quite so sure about it as I was this morning."

"It won't bother you much. When you've made him see that we're square
and Grady isn't, you've done the whole business. We won't pay fancy
damages, that's all."

"Yes," she said, "I