“Nothing, eh?” said Bannon.

“Not that I can think of.  Something may have come in while Max was here in the office—­”

“I wish you’d ask him.”

“All right.  He’ll be around my way before long, taking the time.”

“And say,” Bannon added, with one foot on the doorstep, “you haven’t seen anything more of that man Briggs, have you?”

Peterson shook his head.

“If you see him hanging around, you may as well throw him right off the job.”

Peterson grinned.

“I guess he won’t show up very fast.  Max did him up good last night, when he was blowing off about bringing the delegate around.”

Bannon had drawn the door to after him when he came out.  He was turning back, with a hand on the knob, when Peterson, who was lingering, said in a low voice, getting out the words awkwardly:—­

“Say, Charlie, she’s all right, ain’t she.”

Bannon did not reply, and Peterson jerked his thumb toward the office.

“Max’s sister, there.  I never saw any red hair before that was up to the mark.  Ain’t she a little uppish, though, don’t you think?”

“I guess not.”

“Red-haired girls generally is.  They’ve got tempers, too, most of them.  It’s funny about her looks.  She don’t look any more like Max than anything.”  He grinned again.  “Lord, Max is a peach, though, ain’t he.”

Bannon nodded and reentered the office.  He sat down and added a postscript to his letter: 

The C. & S. C. people are trying to make it warm for us about working across their tracks.  Can’t we have an understanding with them before we get ready to put up the belt gallery?  If we don’t, we’ll have to build a suspension bridge.  C. B.

He sealed the envelope and tossed it to one side.

“Miss Vogel,” he said, pushing his chair back, “didn’t you ask me something just now?”

“It was about getting the cribbing across the lake,” she replied.  “I don’t see how you did it.”

Her interest in the work pleased Bannon.

“It ain’t a bad story.  You see the farmers up in that country hate the railroads.  It’s the tariff rebate, you know.  They have to pay more to ship their stuff to market than some places a thousand miles farther off.  And I guess the service is pretty bad all around.  I was figuring on something like that as soon as I had a look at things.  So we got up a poster and had it printed, telling what they all think of the G.&M.”—­he paused, and his eyes twinkled—­“I wouldn’t mind handing one to that Superintendent just for the fun of seeing him when he read it.  It told the farmers to come around to Sloan’s lumber yard with their wagons.”

“And you carried it across in the wagons?”

“I guess we did.”

“Isn’t it a good ways?”

“Eighteen to thirty miles, according to who you ask.  As soon as things got to going we went after the General Manager and gave him a bad half hour; so I shouldn’t be surprised to see the rest of the bill coming in by rail any time now.”