Samuel Merwin - Calumet K

"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 tomorrow," 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.