tween 'em, the whole weight of the thing would be passed along to the
foundation that the ends of the timbers rest on. But you see, it's got
to be one hundred and fifty feet long, and to build it that way would
take two one hundred-foot timbers, and we haven't got 'em that long.

[Illustration: HE WAS DRAWING LINES ACROSS THE TIMBER]

"But we've got plenty of sticks that are twenty feet long, and plenty of
bolts, and this is the way we arrange 'em. We put up our first stick
(_x_) at an angle just as before. Then we let a bolt (_o_) down through
the upper end of it and through the floor of the gallery. Now the next
timber (_y_) we put up at just the same angle as the first, with the
foot of it bearing down on the lower end of the bolt.

"That second stick pushes two ways. A straight down push and a sideways
push. The bolt resists the down push and transmits it to the first
stick, and that pushes against the sill that I marked _a_. Now, the
sideways push is against the butt of the first timber of the floor, and
that's passed on, same way, to the sill.

"Well, that's the whole trick. You begin at both ends at once and just
keep right on going. When the thing's done it looks this way. You see
where the two sections meet in the middle, it's just the same as the
little fifteen-foot gallery that we made a picture of up here."

[Illustration: "WELL, THAT'S THE WHOLE TRICK"]

"I understand that all right," said Pete, "but I don't see yet how
you're going to do it without some kind of scaffolding."

"Easy. I ain't going to use a balloon, but I've got something that's
better. It'll be out here this afternoon. Come and help me get things
ready."

There was not much to do, for the timber was already cut to the right
sizes, but Bannon was not content till everything was piled so that when
work did begin on the gallery it could go without a hitch. He was
already several days behind, and when one is figuring it as fine as
Bannon was doing in those last days, even one day is a serious matter.
He could do nothing more at the belt gallery until his substitute for a
scaffold should arrive; it did not come that afternoon or evening, and
next morning when he came on the job it still had not been heard from.
There was enough to occupy every moment of his time and every shred of
his thought without bothering about the gallery, and he did not worry
about it as he would have worried if he had had nothing to do but wait
for it.

But whe