I, going
to old MacBride with my tail between my legs, telling him that the job
was too much for me and I couldn't get it done on time. He'd look me
over and say: 'Bannon, you're a liar. You've never had to lay down yet,
and you don't now. Go back and get that job done before New Year's or
I'll shoot you.'"

"You don't want to get rich, that's the trouble with you," said Sloan,
and he said it almost enviously.

Bannon rode to Manistogee on the first wagon. The barge was there, so
the work of loading the cribbing into her began at once. There were
numerous interruptions at first, but later in the day the stream of
wagons became almost continuous. Farmers living on other than the
Manistogee roads came into Ledyard and hurried back to tell their
neighbors of the chance to get ahead of the railroad for once. Dennis,
who was in charge at the yard, had hard work to keep up with the supply
of empty wagons.

Sloan disappeared early in the morning, but at five o'clock Bannon had a
telephone message from him. "I'm here at Blake City," he said, "raising
hell. The general manager gets here at nine o'clock to-night to talk
with me. They're feeling nervous about your getting that message. I
think you'd better come up here and talk to him."

So a little after nine that night the three men, Sloan, Bannon, and the
manager, sat down to talk it over. And the fact that in the first place
an attempt to boycott could be proved, and in the second that Page &
Company were getting what they wanted anyway--while they talked a long
procession of cribbing was creaking along by lantern light to
Manistogee--finally convinced the manager that the time had come to
yield as gracefully as possible.

"He means it this time," said Sloan, when he and Bannon were left alone
at the Blake City hotel to talk things over.

"Yes, I think he does. If he don't, I'll come up here again and have a
short session with him."

CHAPTER V

[Illustration: LAYOUT]

It was nearly five o'clock when Bannon appeared at the elevator on
Thursday. He at once sought Peterson.

"Well, what luck did you have?" he asked. "Did you get my message?"

"Your message? Oh, sure. You said the cribbing was coming down by boat.
I don't see how, though. Ledyard ain't on the lake."

"Well, it's coming just the same, two hundred thousand feet of it. What
have you done about it?"

"Oh, we'll be ready for it, soon's it gets here."

They were standing at the north side of t