Far out in Minnesota and Montana and South Dakota farmers were driving their wheat-laden wagons to the hundreds of local receiving houses that dotted the railroad lines.  Box cars were waiting for the red grain, to roll it away to Minneapolis and Duluth—­day and night the long trains were puffing eastward.  Everywhere the order was, “Rush!” Railroad presidents and managers knew that Page was in a hurry, and they knew what Page’s hurries meant, not only to the thousands of men who depended on him for their daily bread, but to the many great industries of the Northwest, whose credit and integrity were inextricably interwoven with his.  Division superintendents knew that Page was in a hurry, and they snapped out orders and discharged half-competent men and sent quick words along the hot wires that were translated by despatchers and operators and yard masters into profane, driving commands.  Conductors knew it, brakemen and switchmen knew it; they made flying switches in defiance of companies’ orders, they ran where they used to walk, they slung their lunch pails on their arms and ate when and where they could, gazing over their cold tea at some portrait of Page, or of a member of the Clique, or of Bannon, in the morning’s paper.

Elevator men at Minneapolis knew that Page was in a hurry, and they worked day and night at shovel and scale.  Steamboat masters up at Duluth knew it, and mates and deck hands and stevedores and dockwallopers—­more than one steamer scraped her paint in the haste to get under the long spouts that waited to pour out grain by the hundred thousand bushels.  Trains came down from Minneapolis, boats came down from Duluth, warehouse after warehouse at Chicago was filled; and overstrained nerves neared the breaking point as the short December days flew by.  Some said the Clique would win, some said Page would win; in the wheat pit men were fighting like tigers; every one who knew the facts was watching Charlie Bannon.

The storm came on the eighteenth of the month.  It was predicted two days ahead, and ship masters were warned at all the lake ports.  It was a Northwest blizzard, driven down from the Canadian Rockies at sixty miles an hour, leaving two feet of snow behind it over a belt hundreds of miles wide.  But Page’s steamers were not stopping for blizzards; they headed out of Duluth regardless of what was to come.  And there were a bad few days, with tales of wreck on lake and railroad, days of wind and snow and bitter cold, and of risks run that supplied round-house and tug-office yarn spinners with stories that were not yet worn out.  Down on the job the snow brought the work to a pause, but Bannon, within a half-hour, was out of bed and on the ground, and there was no question of changing shifts until, after twenty-four hours, the storm had passed, and elevator, annex and marine tower were cleared of snow.  Men worked until they could not stagger, then snatched a few hours’ sleep where they could.  Word was passed that those who wished might observe the regular hours, but not a dozen men took the opportunity.  For now they were in the public eye, and they felt as soldiers feel, when, after long months of drill and discipline, they are led to the charge.