"I'd do it to-night, if I were you," said Bannon, significantly. Then he began writing letters himself. Peterson and Vogel came into the office a few minutes later. "Writing a letter to your girl?" said Peterson, jocularly. "We ought to have a stenographer out here, Pete." "Stenographer! I didn't know you was such a dude. You'll be wanting a solid silver electric bell connecting with the sody fountain next." "That's straight," said Bannon. "We ought to have a stenographer for a fact." He said nothing until he had finished and sealed the two letters he was writing. They were as follows:-- DEAR MR. BROWN: It's a mess and no mistake. I'm glad Mr. MacBride didn't come to see it. He'd have fits. The whole job is tied up in a hard knot. Peterson is wearing out chair bottoms waiting for the cribbing from Ledyard. I expect we will have a strike before long. I mean it. The main house is most up to the distributing floor. The spouting house is framed. The annex is up as far as the bottom, waiting for cribbing. Yours, BANNON. P.S. I hope this letter makes you sweat to pay you for last Saturday night. I am about dead. Can't get any sleep. And I lost thirty-two pounds up to Duluth. I expect to die down here. C. B. P.S. I guess we'd better set fire to the whole damn thing and collect the insurance and skip. C. The other was shorter. MACBRIDE & COMPANY, Minneapolis: _Gentlemen_: I came on the Calumet job to-day. Found it held up by failure of cribbing from Ledyard. Will have at least enough to work with by end of the week. We will get the house done according to specifications. Yours truly, MACBRIDE & COMPANY. CHARLES BANNON. CHAPTER II The five o'clock whistle had sounded, and Peterson sat on the bench inside the office door, while Bannon washed his hands in the tin basin. The twilight was already settling; within the shanty, whose dirty, small-paned windows served only to indicate the lesser darkness without, a wall lamp, set in a dull reflector, threw shadows into the corners. "You're coming up with me, ain't you?" said Peterson. "I don't believe you'll get much to eat. Supper's just the pickings from dinner." "Well, the dinner was all right. But I wish you had a bigger bed. I ain't slept for two nights." "What was the matter?"