four o'clock Christmas afternoon
So for another twenty-four hours they strained and tugged and tusselled up in the big swing , for it was nothing else , above the railroad tracks . There was a northeast gale raging down off the lake , with squalls of rain and sleet mixed up in it , and it took the crazy , swaying box in its teeth and shook it and tossed it up in the air in its eagerness to strip it off the cable . But somewhere there was an unconquerable tenacity that held fast , and in the teeth of the wind the long box grew rigid , as the trusses were pounded into place by men so spent with fatigue that one might say it was sheer good will that drove the hammers . At four o'clock Christmas afternoon the last bolt was drawn taut . The gallery , was done . Bannon had been on the work since midnight -- sixteen consecutive hours . He had eaten nothing except two sandwiches that he had stowed in his pockets .