"It's queer, though," continued the foreman, "how the boys get used to it. See those timbers right at the top that come together in a point? We call that an A-frame; it's for the hoisting. Well, the boys walk those cross-timbers all the time, say a length of thirty feet and a width of one. It's nothing on the ground, but up there with the wind blowing—well, you try it. I saw one fellow do a thing that knocked me. He stopped half-way across a timber not over eight inches wide, took out his match-box, stood on his right foot, lifted his left foot, and struck a match on his left heel. Then he nursed the flame in his hands, got his pipe going good, and walked on across the timber. Wha'd' ye think of that? There he was, balanced on one foot, sir, with an awful death on either side, and the wind just whooping—all because his pipe went out. I wouldn't do it for—for— Well, I wouldn't do it."
"Why didn't he wait to light his pipe until he got across?" I asked.
The foreman shook his head. "I give it up. He just happened to think of it then, and he done it. That's the way they are, some of 'em. Why, there was another fellow, Pat Reagan, as good a man as we've got, and he went sound asleep one day last summer,—it was a nice warm day,—sitting on the top-chord. That's a long, narrow girder at the very highest point of the end-span. First thing we knew, there was Pat, legs dangling, head nodding, comfortable as you please. A few inches either way would have fixed him forever; but he stuck there, by an Irishman's luck, until two of his mates climbed up softly and grabbed him. They didn't dare yell for fear he'd be startled and fall."
While we were talking the wind had strengthened, and now every line and rope on the structure stood out straight from the sides, and swirls of spray from hoisting engines overhead flew across the yard, also occasional splinters. The foreman hurried a man aloft with orders to lash fast everything.
"There's a hard blow coming up," he predicted, "and it 'wouldn't do a thing' to those big timbers on the tower if we left 'em around loose! People have no idea what force is in the wind. Why, sir, I've seen it blow a keg of railroad spikes off that tower clean across the yard. And one day two planks thirteen feet long and two inches thick went flying over the whole approach-works right plumb through the front of a saloon out on the street. That made eight hundred feet the wind carried those planks. As for coats and overalls, why, we've watched lots of 'em start from the tower-top and sail off over Brooklyn city like kites—yes, sir, like kites; and nobody ever knew where they landed."
"I don't see how the men keep their footing in such a gale," I remarked.
"Well," said he, "we order them down when it blows an out-and-out gale, but they work in 'most anything short of a gale. And it's a wonder how they do it. It's not so bad if the wind is steady, for then you can lean against it, same as a man leans on a bicycle going around a curve; but—"
"Do you mean," I interrupted, "that they walk narrow girders leaning against the wind—against a hard wind?"
"Certainly; they have to. But that's not the worst of it. Suppose a man is leaning just enough to balance the wind, and suddenly the wind lets up, say on a gusty day. Then where's your man? Or suppose it's winter and the whole bridge is coated with ice, so that walking girders is like sliding on glass. Then where is he, especially when it's blowing tricky blasts? Oh, it's no dream, my friend, working on a bridge!"
And I, in hearty accord with that opinion, betook me back to the office, where I read just outside the door this ominous notice: "All accidents must be reported as soon as possible, or claims therefor will be disregarded."