Miss Vogel was looking out of the window.

"He said he could not give us cars?" she repeated.

Bannon smiled.

"But we didn't need them," he said. "I got a barge to come over from
Milwaukee, and we loaded her up and started her down."

"I don't understand, Mr. Bannon. Ledyard isn't on the lake--and you
couldn't get cars."

"That wasn't very hard." He paused, for a step sounded outside the door
and in a moment Peterson had come in.

"I guess you wanted to talk to me, didn't you, Charlie?"

"Yes, I'm writing to the office. It's about this C. & S. C. business. You
said you'd had trouble with them before."

"Oh, no," said Peterson, sitting on the railing and removing his hat, with
a side glance at Miss Vogel, "not to speak of. There wasn't nothing so bad
as last night."

"What was it?"

"Why, just a little talk when we opened the fence first time. That section
boss was around, but I told him how things was, and he didn't seem to have
no kick coming as long as we was careful."