n, well along in the afternoon, a water boy found him up on the
weighing floor and told him there was something for him at the office,
he made astonishing time getting down. "Here's your package," said Max,
as Bannon burst into the little shanty. It was a little, round,
pasteboard box. If Bannon had had the office to himself, he would, in
his disappointment, have cursed the thing till it took fire. As it was,
he stood speechless a moment and then turned to go out again.

"Aren't you going to open it, now you're here?" asked Max.

Bannon, after hesitating, acted on the suggestion, and when he saw what
it was, he laughed. No, Brown had not forgotten the hat! Max gazed at it
in unfeigned awe; it was shiny as a mirror, black as a hearse, tall, in
his eyes--for this was his first near view of one--as the seat of a
dining-room chair. "Put it on," he said to Bannon. "Let's see how it
looks on you."

"Not much. Wouldn't I look silly in a thing like that, though? I'd
rather wear an ordinary length of stovepipe. That'd be durable, anyway.
I wonder what Brown sent it for. I thought he knew a joke when he saw
one."

Just then one of the under-foremen came in. "Oh, Mr. Bannon," he said,
"I've been looking for you. There's a tug in the river with a big, steel
cable aboard that they said was for us. I told 'em I thought it was a
mistake----"

It was all one movement, Bannon's jamming that hat--the silk hat--down
on his head, and diving through the door. He shouted orders as he ran,
and a number of men, Pete among them, got to the wharf as soon as he
did.

"Now, boys, this is all the false work we can have. We're going to hang
it up across the tracks and hang our gallery up on it till it's strong
enough to hold itself. We've got just forty-eight hours to do the whole
trick. Catch hold now--lively."

[Illustration: IT WAS A SIMPLE SCHEME]

It was a simple scheme of Bannon's. The floor of the gallery was to be
built in two sections, one in the main house, one in the spouting house.
As fast as the timbers were bolted together the halves of the floor were
shoved out over the tracks, each free end being supported by a rope
which ran up over a pulley. The pulley was held by an iron ring fast to
the cable, but perfectly free to slide along it, and thus accompany the
end of the floor as it was moved outward. Bannon explained it to Pete in
a few quick words while the men were hustling the big cable off the tug.

"Of course," he was c