Then came two days of biting weather—­when ears were nipped and fingers stiffened, and carpenters who earned three dollars a day envied the laborers, whose work kept their blood moving—­and after this a thaw, with sleet and rain.  James, the new delegate, came to Bannon and pointed out that men who are continually drenched to the skin are not the best workmen.  The boss met the delegate fairly; he ordered an oilskin coat for every man on the job, and in another day they swarmed over the building, looking, at a distance, like glistening yellow beetles.

But if Chicago was thawing, Duluth was not.  The harbor at the western end of Lake Superior was ice-bound, and it finally reached a point that the tugs could not break open the channel.  This was on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth.  The wires were hot, but Page’s agents succeeded in covering the facts until Christmas Day.  It was just at dusk, after leaving the men to take down the cable, that Bannon went to the office.

A newsboy had been on the grounds with a special edition of a cheap afternoon paper.  Hilda had taken one, and when Bannon entered the office he found her reading, leaning forward on the desk, her chin on her hands, the paper spread out over the ledger.

“Hello,” he said, throwing off his dripping oilskin, and coming into the enclosure; “I’m pretty near ready to sit down and think about the Christmas tree that we ain’t going to have.”

She looked up, and he saw that she was a little excited; her eyes always told him.  During this last week she had been carrying the whole responsibility of the work on her shoulders.

“Have you seen this?” she asked.

“Haven’t read a paper this week.”  He leaned over the desk beside her and read the article.  In Duluth harbor, and at St. Mary’s straits, a channel through the ice had been blasted out with dynamite, and the last laden steamer was now ploughing down Lake Michigan.  Already one steamer was lying at the wharf by the marine tower, waiting for the machinery to start, and others lay behind her, farther down the river.  Long strings of box cars filled the Belt Line sidings, ready to roll into the elevator at the word.

Bannon seated himself on the railing, and caught his toes between the supports.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, “those fellows have got to get up pretty early in the morning if they’re going to beat old Page.”

She looked at him, and then slowly folded the paper and turned toward the window.  It was nearly dark outside.  The rain, driving down from the northeast, tapped steadily on the glass.  The arc lamp, on the pole near the tool house, was a blurred circle of light.  She was thinking that they would have to get up pretty early to beat Charlie Bannon.

They were silent for a time—­silences were not so hard as they had been, a few weeks before—­both looking out at the storm, and both thinking that this was Christmas night.  On the afternoon before he had asked her to take a holiday, and she had shaken her head.  “I couldn’t—­I’d be here before noon,” was what she had said; and she had laughed a little at her own confession, and hurried away with Max.