Hilda turned with a little start and saw that Bannon was waiting for her.  Following him, she picked her way between piles of planks and timber, and between groups of laborers and carpenters, to the other side.  Now they could look down at the four tracks of the C. & S. C, the unfinished spouting house on the wharf, and the river.

“Here’s where the belt gallery will go,” he said, pointing downward:  “right over the tracks to the spouting house.  They carry the grain on endless belts, you know.”

“Doesn’t it ever fall off?”

“Not a kernel.  It’s pretty to watch.  When she gets to running we’ll come up some day and look at it.”

They walked slowly back toward the well.  Before they reached it Peterson and Max joined them.  Peterson had rolled down his sleeves and put on his coat.

“You ain’t going down now, are you?” he said.  “We’ll be starting in pretty soon on some of the heavy framing.  This is just putting in girders.”

He was speaking directly to Miss Vogel, but he made an effort to include Bannon in the conversation by an awkward movement of his head.  This stiffness in Peterson’s manner when Bannon was within hearing had been growing more noticeable during the past few days.

“Don’t you think of going yet,” he continued, with a nervous laugh, for Hilda was moving on.  “She needn’t be in such a rush to get to work, eh, Charlie?”

Hilda did not give Bannon a chance to reply.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Peterson,” she said, smiling, “but I must go back, really.  Maybe you’ll tell me some day when you’re going to do something special, so I can come up again.”

Peterson’s disappointment was so frankly shown in his face that she smiled again.  “I’ve enjoyed it very much,” she said.  She was still looking at Peterson, but at the last word she turned to include Bannon, as if she had suddenly remembered that he was in the party.  There was an uncomfortable feeling, shown by all in their silence and in their groping about for something to say.

“I’ll go ahead and clear the track,” said Bannon.  “I’ll holler up to you, Max, when we’re ready down below.”

“Here,” said Max, “let me go down.”

But Bannon had already started down the first ladder.

“The next time you come to visit us, Miss Vogel,” he called back, “I guess we’ll have our real elevator in, and we can run you up so fast it’ll take your breath away.  We’ll be real swells here yet.”

When he reached the working floor, he called in the laborers and shouted to Max.  But when the box, slowly descending, appeared below the bin walls, it was Peterson who held the line and chatted with Hilda as he steadied her.

The next day a lot of cribbing came from Ledyard, and Bannon at once set about reorganizing his forces so that work could go on night and day.  He and Peterson would divide the time equally into twelve-hour days; but three divisions were necessary for the men, the morning shift working from midnight until eight o’clock, the day shift from eight to four, and the night shift from four to midnight.