Somehow, seen from here, the iron street looked delicate, not massive; its sides were trellis-work, its top frames gently slanting, and one could fancy the whole thing beautifully grown over with vines, a graceful arbor-way suspended in mid-air. And down the length of this came the strangest sounds—one would say a company of woodpeckers of some giant sort making riot in an echoing forest. Br-r-r-ip-ip-ip-ip—br-r-r-r-up-up-up—br-r-r-ap-ap-ap-ap-ap. What was it? Now from this side, up-up-up-br-r-r-up-up, and ending abruptly. Then straightway from near the top on the other side, ap-ap-ap-br-r-r-r-ap-ap-ap. Then fainter from half-way down the street, and then from all points at once, a chorus of hammer-birds making the bridge resound in call and in answer, hammer-birds with strokes as swift as the roll of a drum. What is it?
And look! Those points of fire that glow forth here and there and vanish as the eye perceives them, tiny red lights, tiny yellow lights, that flash from far down the iron street and are gone, that flash from all along the iron street and are gone! What are they? What strange work is doing here?
"THE IRON STREET LOOKED DELICATE, NOT MASSIVE."
It was the riveters driving the endless red-hot bolts that hold the bridge together, driving them with hammers that you work with a trigger, and aim like a fireman's hose, hammers with rubber pipes dragging behind that feed in compressed air from an engine. Long past are the days when bolts were driven by brawny arms and the slow swing of a sledge. Now the workman, leaning his stomach against an iron club, touches a spring, and, presto! the hard-kicking, pent-up air inside drives the darting club-head back and forth, back and forth, quick as a snake strikes, br-r-r-r-r-ip-ip-ip-ip, against whatever the steering arms may press it. Driving rivets nowadays is something like handling a rapid-fire gun. And how your body aches from the bruise of that recoil!
"We must get nearer to those fellows," said the artist; and presently, after some mild hazards, we were safely over on the span, quite as near as was desirable to a gang of riveters dangling twenty feet above us on a swing. For presently, with a sputter of white sparks, a piece of red-hot iron struck the girder we were straddling, and then went bounding down—down—
"Nice, hospitable place, this!" remarked the artist, as we edged under cover of a wide steel beam.
Crouching here, we watched another gang of riveters on the structure opposite, where we had a better view, watched the forge-man pass along the glowing rivets, and the buffer-man slip them through ready holes, and the hammer-man flatten the flaming ends into smooth, burnished heads. And presently a riveter in black cap and faded blue jersey climbed down from the swing overhead, and explained things to us. He did this out of sheer good nature, I think, although he may have been curious to know what two men with derby hats and kodaks were doing up there. We watched his descent in wonder and alarm, for it involved some lively gymnastics, that he entered upon, however, with complete indifference. First he swung across from the scaffolding to a girder, the highest rail of the bridge, and along this walked as coolly as a boy on a wide fence-top, only this happened to be a fence one hundred and fifty feet high. Then he bent over and caught one of the slanting side supports, and down this worked his way as a mountain-climber would work down a precipice. Presently he stepped off at our level, never having taken the pipe from his mouth.
