he said:--

"Well, what are you asking?"

"These gangs ought to be relieved every two hours."

"I'll do it. Now clear up those timbers."

The delegate turned with a scowl, and waved the men back to their work. In
a moment the track was clear, and the train was moving slowly onward
between the long lines of men.

Bannon started the gangs at work. When the timbers were again coming
across from the wharf in six slowly moving streams that converged at the
end of the elevator, he stood looking after the triangle of red lights on
the last car of the train until they had grown small and close together in
the distance. Then he went over to the wharf to see how much timber
remained, and to tell Peterson to hurry the work; for he did not look for
any further accommodation on the part of the C. & S. C. railroad, now that
a train had been stopped. The steamer lay quietly at the dock, the long
pile of cribbing on her deck shadowed by the high bow deckhouse from the
lights on the spouting house. Her crew were bustling about, rigging the
two hoisting engines, and making all ready for unloading when the order
should be given.

Peterson had been working through the timber pile from the shore side, so
that now only a thin wall remained at the outer edge of the wharf. Bannon
found him standing on the pile, rolling down the sticks with a peavey to
where the carrying gangs could pick them up. "Better bring all your men up
here, Pete, and clean it all away by the steamer. She may as well begin