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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
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