Calumet 'K'

Then Hilda spoke for the first time. "Has he so much power as that? Will they strike just because he orders them to?"

"Why, not exactly," said Bannon. "They decide that for themselves, or at least they think they do. They vote on it."

"Well, then," she asked hesitatingly, "why can't you just tell the men what Mr. Grady wants you to do and show them that he's dishonest? They know they've been treated all right, don't they?"

Bannon shook his head. "No use," he said. "You see, these fellows don't know much. They aren't like skilled laborers who need some sense in their business. They're just common roustabouts, and most of 'em have gunpowder in place of brains. They don't want facts or reason either; what they like is Grady's oratory. They think that's the finest thing they ever heard. They might all be perfectly satisfied and anxious to work, but if Grady was to sing out to know if they wanted to be slaves, they'd all strike like a freight train rolling down grade.

"No," he went on, "there's nothing to be done with the men. Do you know what would happen if I was to go up to their lodge and tell right out that Grady was a blackmailer? Why, after they'd got through with me, personally, they'd pass a resolution vindicating Grady. They'd resolve that I was a thief and a liar and a murderer and an oppressor of the poor and a traitor, and if they could think of anything more than that, they'd put it in, too. And after vindicating Grady to their satisfaction, they'd take his word for law and the gospel more than ever. In this sort of a scrape you want to hit as high as you can, strike the biggest man who will let you in his office. It's the small fry that make the trouble. I guess that's true 'most everywhere. I know the general manager of a railroad is always an easier chap to get on with than the division superintendent."

"Well," said Pete, after waiting a moment to see if Bannon had any definite suggestion to make as to the best way to deal with Grady, "I'm glad you don't think he'll try to tie us up to-night. Maybe we'll think of something to-morrow. I've got to get back on the job."

"I'll go up with you," said Max, promptly. Then, in answer to Hilda's gesture of protest, "You don't want to climb away up there to-night. I'll be back in ten minutes," and he was gone before she could reply. "I guess I can take care of you till he comes back," said Bannon. Hilda made no answer. She seemed to think that silence would conceal her annoyance better than anything she could say. So, after waiting a moment, Bannon went on talking.

"I suppose that's the reason why I get ugly sometimes and call names; because I ain't a big enough man not to. If I was getting twenty-five thousand a year maybe I'd be as smooth as anybody. I'd like to be a general manager for a while, just to see how it would work."

"I don't see how anybody could ever know enough to run a railroad." Hilda was looking up at the C. & S. C. right of way, where red and white semaphore lights were winking.

"I was offered that job once myself, though, and turned it down," said Bannon. "I was superintendent of the electric light plant at Yawger. Yawger's quite a place, on a branch of the G. T. There was another road ran through the town, called the Bemis, Yawger and Pacific. It went from Bemis to Stiles Corners, a place about six miles west of Yawger. It didn't get any nearer the Pacific than that. Nobody in Yawger ever went to Bemis or Stiles, and there wasn't anybody in Bemis and Stiles to come to Yawger, or if they did come they never went back, so the road didn't do a great deal of business. They assessed the stock every year to pay the officers' salaries – and they had a full line of officers, too – but the rest of the road had to scrub along the best it could.

"When they elected me alderman from the first ward up at Yawger, I found out that the B. Y. & P. owed the city four hundred and thirty dollars, so I tried to find out why they wasn't made to pay. It seemed that the city had had a judgment against them for years, but they couldn't get hold of anything that was worth seizing. They all laughed at me when I said I meant to get that money out of 'em.

"The railroad had one train; there was an engine and three box cars and a couple of flats and a combination – that's baggage and passenger. It made the round trip from Bemis every day, fifty-two miles over all, and considering the roadbed and the engine, that was a good day's work.

"Well, that train was worth four hundred and thirty dollars all right enough, if they could have got their hands on it, but the engineer was such a peppery chap that nobody ever wanted to bother him. But I just bided my time, and one hot day after watering up the engine him and the conductor went off to get a drink. I had a few lengths of log chain handy, and some laborers with picks and shovels, and we made a neat, clean little job of it. Then I climbed up into the cab. When the engineer came back and wanted to know what I was doing there, I told him we'd attached his train. 'Don't you try to serve no papers on me,' he sung out, 'or I'll split your head.' 'There's no papers about this job,' said I. 'We've attached it to the track,' At that he dropped the fire shovel and pulled open the throttle. The drivers spun around all right, but the train never moved an inch.

"He calmed right down after that and said he hadn't four hundred and thirty dollars with him, but if I'd let the train go, he'd pay me in a week. I couldn't quite do that, so him and the conductor had to walk 'way to Bemis, where the general offices was. They was pretty mad. We had that train chained up there for 'most a month, and at last they paid the claim."

"Was that the railroad that offered to make you general manager?" Hilda asked.

"Yes, provided I'd let the train go. I'm glad I didn't take it up, though. You see, the farmers along the road who held the stock in it made up their minds that the train had quit running for good, so they took up the rails where it ran across their farms, and used the ties for firewood. That's all they ever got out of their investment."

A few moments later Max came back and Bannon straightened up to go. "I wish you'd tell Pete when you see him to-morrow," he said to the boy, "that I won't be on the job till noon."

"Going to take a holiday?"

"Yes. Tell him I'm taking the rest cure up at a sanitarium."

At half-past eight next morning Bannon entered the outer office of R. S. Carver, president of the Central District of the American Federation of Labor, and seated himself on one of the long row of wood-bottomed chairs that stood against the wall. Most of them were already occupied by poorly dressed men who seemed also to be waiting for the president. One man, in dilapidated, dirty finery, was leaning over the stenographer's desk, talking about the last big strike and guessing at the chance of there being any fun ahead in the immediate future. But the rest of them waited in stolid, silent patience, sitting quite still in unbroken rank along the wall, their overcoats, if they had them, buttoned tight around their chins, though the office was stifling hot. The dirty man who was talking to the stenographer filled a pipe with some very bad tobacco and ostentatiously began smoking it, but not a man followed his example.

Bannon sat in that silent company for more than an hour before the great man came. Even then there was no movement among those who sat along the wall, save as they followed him almost furtively with their eyes. The president never so much as glanced at one of them; for all he seemed to see the rank of chairs might have been empty. He marched across to his private office, and, leaving the door open behind him, sat down before his desk. Bannon sat still a moment, waiting for those who had come before him to make the first move, but not a man of them stirred, so, somewhat out of patience with this mysteriously solemn way of doing business, he arose and walked into the president's office with as much assurance as though it had been his own. He shut the door after him. The president did not look up, but went on cutting open his mail.

"I'm from MacBride & Company, of Minneapolis," said Bannon.

"Guess I don't know the parties."

"Yes, you do. We're building a grain elevator at Calumet."

The president looked up quickly. "Sit down," he said. "Are you superintending the work?"

"Yes. My name's Bannon – Charles Bannon."

"Didn't you have some sort of an accident out there? An overloaded hoist? And you hurt a man, I believe."

"Yes."

"And I think one of your foremen drew a revolver on a man."

"I did, myself."

The president let a significant pause intervene before his next question. "What do you want with me?"

"I want you to help me out. It looks as though we might get into trouble with our laborers."

"You've come to the wrong man. Mr. Grady is the man for you to talk with. He's their representative."

"We haven't got on very well with Mr. Grady. The first time he came on the job he didn't know our rule that visitors must apply at the office, and we weren't very polite to him. He's been down on us ever since. We can't make any satisfactory agreement with him."

Carver turned away impatiently. "You'll have to," he said, "if you want to avoid trouble with your men. It's no business of mine. He's acting on their instructions."

"No, he isn't," said Bannon, sharply. "What they want, I guess, is to be treated square and paid a fair price. What he wants is blackmail."

"I've heard that kind of talk before. It's the same howl that an employer always makes when he's tried to bribe an agent who's active in the interest of the men, and got left at it. What have you got to show for it? Anything but just your say so?"

Bannon drew out Grady's letter of warning and handed it to him. Carver read it through, then tossed it on his desk. "You certainly don't offer that as proof that he wants blackmail, Mr. Bannon."

"There's never any proof of blackmail. When a man can see me alone, he isn't going to talk before witnesses, and he won't commit himself in writing. Grady told me that unless we paid his price he'd tie us up. No one else was around when he said it."

"Then you haven't anything but your say so. But I know him, and I don't know you. Do you think I'd take your word against his?"

"That letter doesn't prove blackmail," said Bannon, "but it smells of it. And there's the same smell about everything Grady has done. When he came to my office a day or two after that hoist accident, I tried to find out what he wanted, and he gave me nothing but oratory. I tried to pin him down to something definite, but my stenographer was there and Grady didn't have a suggestion to make. Then by straining his neck and asking questions, he found out we were in a hurry, that the elevator was no good unless it was done by January first, and that we had all the money we needed.

"Two days after he sent me that letter. Look at it again. Why does he want to take both of us to Chicago on Sunday morning, when he can see me any time at my office on the job?" Bannon spread the letter open before Carver's face. "Why doesn't he say right here what it is he wants, if it's anything he dares to put in black and white? I didn't pay any attention to that letter; it didn't deserve any. And then will you tell me why he came to my room at night to see me instead of to my office in the daytime? I can prove that he did. Does all that look as if I tried to bribe him? Forget that we're talking about Grady, and tell me what you think it looks like."

Carver was silent for a moment. "That wouldn't do any good," he said at last. "If you had proof that I could act on, I might be able to help you. I haven't any jurisdiction in the internal affairs of that lodge; but if you could offer proof that he is what you say he is, I could tell them that if they continued to support him, the federation withdraws its support. But I don't see that I can help you as it is. I don't see any reason why I should."

"I'll tell you why you should. Because if there's any chance that what I've said is true, it will be a lot better for your credit to have the thing settled quietly. And it won't be settled quietly if we have to fight. It isn't very much you have to do; just satisfy yourself as to how things are going down there. See whether we're square, or Grady is. Then when the scrap comes on you'll know how to act. That's all. Do your investigating in advance."

"That's just what I haven't any right to do. I can't mix up in the business till it comes before me in the regular way."

"Well," said Bannon, with a smile, "if you can't do it yourself, maybe some man you have confidence in would do it for you."

Carver drummed thoughtfully on his desk for a few minutes. Then he carefully folded Grady's letter and put it in his pocket. "I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Bannon," he said, holding out his hand. "Good morning."

Next morning while Bannon was opening his mail, a man came to the timekeeper's window and asked for a job as a laborer. "Guess we've got men enough," said Max. "Haven't we, Mr. Bannon?"

The man put his head in the window. "A fellow down in Chicago told me if I'd come out here to Calumet K and ask Mr. Bannon for a job, he'd give me one."

"Are you good up high?" Bannon asked.

The man smiled ruefully, and said he was afraid not.

"Well, then," returned Bannon, "we'll have to let you in on the ground floor. What's your name?"

"James."

"Go over to the tool house and get a broom. Give him a check, Max."

CHAPTER XII

On the twenty-second of November Bannon received this telegram: —

Mr. Charles Bannon, care of MacBride & Company, South Chicago:

We send to-day complete drawings for marine tower which you will build in the middle of spouting house. Harahan Company are building the Leg.

MacBride & Co.

Bannon read it carefully, folded it, opened it and read it again, then tossed it on the desk.

"We're off now, for sure," he said to Miss Vogel. "I've known that was coming sure as Christmas."

Hilda picked it up.

"Is there an answer, Mr. Bannon?"

"No, just file it. Do you make it out?"

She read it and shook her head. Bannon ignored her cool manner.

"It means that your friends on MacBride & Company's Calumet house are going to have the time of their lives for the next few weeks. I'm going to carry compressed food in my pockets, and when meal time comes around, just take a capsule."

"I think I know," she said slowly; "a marine leg is the thing that takes grain up out of ships."

"That's right. You'd better move up head."

"And we've been building a spouting house instead to load it into ships."

"We'll have to build both now. You see, it's getting around to the time when the Pages'll be having a fit every day until the machinery's running, and every bin is full. And every time they have a fit, the people up at the office'll have another, and they'll pass it on to us."

"But why do they want the marine leg?" she asked, "any more now than they did at first?"

"They've got to get the wheat down by boat instead of rail, that's all. Or likely it'll be coming both ways. There's no telling now what's behind it. Both sides have got big men fighting. You've seen it in the papers, haven't you?"

She nodded.

"Of course, what the papers say isn't all true, but it's lively doings all right."

The next morning's mail brought the drawings and instructions; and with them came a letter from Brown to Bannon. "I suppose there's not much good in telling you to hurry," it ran; "but if there is another minute a day you can crowd in, I guess you know what to do with it. Page told me to-day that this elevator will make or break them. Mr. MacBride says that you can have all January for a vacation if you get it through. We owe you two weeks off, anyhow, that you didn't take last summer. We're running down that C. & S. C. business, though I don't believe, myself, that they'll give you any more trouble."

Bannon read it to Hilda, saying as he laid it down: —

"That's something like. I don't know where'll I go, though. Winter ain't exactly the time for a vacation, unless you go shooting, and I'm no hand for that."

"Couldn't you put it off till summer?" she asked, smiling a little.

"Not much. You don't know those people. By the time summer'd come around, they'd have forgotten I ever worked here. I'd strike for a month and Brown would grin and say: 'That's all right, Bannon, you deserve it if anybody does. It'll take a week or so to get your pass arranged, and you might just run out to San Francisco and see if things are going the way they ought to,' And then the first thing I knew I'd be working three shifts somewhere over in China, and Brown would be writing me I was putting in too much time at my meals. No, if MacBride & Company offer you a holiday, the best thing you can do is to grab it, and run, and saw off the telegraph poles behind you. And you couldn't be sure of yourself then."

He turned the letter over in his hand.

"I might go up on the St. Lawrence," he went on. "That's the only place for spending the winter that ever struck me."

"Isn't it pretty cold?"

"It ain't so bad. I was up there last winter. We put up at a house at Coteau, you know. When I got there the foundation wasn't even begun, and we had a bad time getting laborers. I put in the first day sitting on the ice sawing off spiles."

Hilda laughed.

"I shouldn't think you'd care much about going back."

"Were you ever there?" he asked.

"No, I've never been anywhere but home and here, in Chicago."

"Where is your home?"

"It was up in Michigan. That's where Max learned the lumber business. But he and I have been here for nearly two years."

"Well," said Bannon, "some folks may think it's cold up there, but there ain't anywhere else to touch it. It's high ground, you know – nothing like this" – he swept his arm about to indicate the flats outside – "and the scenery beats anything this side of the Rockies. It ain't that there's mountains there, you understand, but it's all big and open, and they've got forests there that would make your Michigan pine woods look like weeds on a sandhill. And the river's great. You haven't seen anything really fine till you've seen the rapids in winter. The people there have a good time too. They know how to enjoy life – it isn't all grime and sweat and making money."

"Well," said Hilda, looking down at her pencil and drawing aimless designs as she talked, "I suppose it is a good place to go. I've seen the pictures, of course, in the time-tables; and one of the railroad offices on Clark Street used to have some big photographs of the St. Lawrence in the window. I looked at them sometimes, but I never thought of really seeing anything like that. I've had some pretty good times on the lake and over at St. Joe. Max used to take me over to Berrien Springs last summer, when he could get off. My aunt lives there."

Bannon was buttoning his coat, and looking at her. He felt the different tone that had got into their talk. It had been impersonal a few minutes before.

"Oh, St. Joe isn't bad," he was saying; "it's quiet and restful and all that, but it's not the same sort of thing at all. You go over there and ride up the river on the May Graham, and it makes you feel lazy and comfortable, but it doesn't stir you up inside like the St. Lawrence does."

She looked up. Her eyes were sparkling as they had sparkled that afternoon on the elevator when she first looked out into the sunset.

"Yes," she replied. "I think I know what you mean. But I never really felt that way; I've only thought about it."

Bannon turned half away, as if to go.

"You'll have to go down there, that's all," he said abruptly. He looked back at her over his shoulder, and added, "That's all there is about it."

Her eyes were half startled, half mischievous, for his voice had been still less impersonal than before. Then she turned back to her work, her face sober, but an amused twinkle lingering in her eyes.

"I should like to go," she said, her pencil poised at the top of a long column. "Max would like it, too."

After supper that evening Max returned early from a visit to the injured man, and told Hilda of a new trouble.

"Do you know that little delegate that's been hanging around?" he asked.

"Grady," she said, and nodded.

"Yes, he's been working the man. I never saw such a change in my life. He just sat up there in bed and swore at me, and said I needn't think I could buy him off with this stuff" – he looked down and Hilda saw that the bowl in his hand was not empty – "and raised a row generally."

"Why?" she asked.

"Give it up. From what he said, I'm sure Grady's behind it."

"Did he give his name?"

"No, but he did a lot of talking about justice to the down-trodden and the power of the unions, and that kind of stuff. I couldn't understand all he said – he's got a funny lingo, you know; I guess it's Polack – but I got enough to know what he meant, and more, too."

"Can he do anything?"

"I don't think so. If we get after him, it'll just set him worse'n pig's bristles. A man like that'll lose his head over nothing. He may be all right in the morning."

But Hilda, after Max had given her the whole conversation as nearly as he could remember it, thought differently. She did not speak her mind out to Max, because she was not yet certain what was the best course to take. The man could easily make trouble, she saw that. But if Max were to lay the matter before Bannon, he would be likely to glide over some of the details that she had got only by close questioning. And a blunder in handling it might be fatal to the elevator, so far as getting it done in December was concerned. Perhaps she took it too seriously; for she was beginning, in spite of herself, to give a great deal of thought to the work and to Bannon. At any rate, she lay awake later than usual that night, going over the problem, and she brought it up, the next morning, the first time that Bannon came into the office after Max had gone out.

"Mr. Bannon," she said, when he had finished dictating a letter to the office, "I want to tell you about that man that was hurt."

Bannon tried not to smile at the nervous, almost breathless way in which she opened the conversation. He saw that, whatever it was, it seemed to her very important, and he settled comfortably on the table, leaning back against the wall with his legs stretched out before him. She had turned on her stool.

"You mean the hoist man?" he asked.

She nodded. "Max goes over to see him sometimes. We've been trying to help make him comfortable – "

"Oh," said Bannon; "it's you that's been sending those things around to him."

She looked at him with surprise.

"Why, how did you know?"

"I heard about it."

Hilda hesitated. She did not know exactly how to begin. It occurred to her that perhaps Bannon was smiling at her eager manner.

"Max was there last night and he said the man had changed all around. He's been friendly, you know, and grateful" – she had forgotten herself again, in thinking of her talk with Max – "and he's said all the time that he wasn't going to make trouble – " She paused.

"Yes, I know something about that," said Bannon. "The lawyers always get after a man that's hurt, you know."

"But last night he had changed all around. He said he was going to have you arrested. He thinks Max has been trying to buy him off with the things we've sent him."

Bannon whistled.

"So our Mr. Grady's got his hands on him!"

"That's what Max and I thought, but he didn't give any names. He wouldn't take the jelly."

"I'm glad you told me," said Bannon, swinging his legs around and sitting up. "It's just as well to know about these things. Grady's made him think he can make a good haul by going after me, poor fool – he isn't the man that'll get it."

"Can he really stop the work?" Hilda asked anxiously.

"Not likely. He'll probably try to make out a case of criminal carelessness against me, and get me jerked up. He ought to have more sense, though. I know how many sticks were on that hoist when it broke. I'll drop around there to-night after dinner and have a talk with him. I'd like to find Grady there – but that's too good to expect."

Hilda had stepped down from the stool, and was looking out through the half-cleaned window at a long train of freight cars that was clanking in on the Belt Line.