"I'll walk along with you myself, if you don't mind," he said. And after
they had crossed the Belt Line tracks, and he had helped her, with a
little laugh from each of them, to pick her way over the switches and
between the freight cars, he said: "You don't look much like your
brother."

It was not a long walk to the boarding house but before they had reached
it Bannon was nervous. It was not a custom with him to leave his work on
such an errand. He bade her a brusque good-night, and hurried back,
pausing only after he had crossed the tracks, to cast his eye over the
timber. There was no sign of activity, though the two arc lamps were still
in place. "All in, eh," he said.

He followed the path beside the elevator and on around the end, and then,
with an exclamation, he hurried forward; for there was the same idle crowd
about the tracks that had been there during the trouble with the section
boss--the same buzz of talk, and the idle laughter and shouting. As he
ran, his foot struck a timber-end, and he sprawled forward for nearly a
rod before recovering his balance; then he stopped and looked along the
ground.

A long line of timbers lay end to end, the timber hooks across them or
near by on the ground, where they had been dropped by the laborers. On
along the path, through the fence openings, and out on the tracks, lay the
lines of timber. Here and there Bannon passed gangs of men lounging on the
ground, waiting for the order to move on. As he passed through the fence,
walking on the timbers, and hurried through the crowd, which had been
pushed back close to the fence, he heard a low laugh that came along like
a wave from man to man. In a moment he was in front of them all.