e. When he was on his feet beside the little Irishman, you saw
that he was a young man, well-built, square-shouldered and athletic
under the muffling of the shapeless fur greatcoat; also, that in spite
of the scowl, his clean-shaven face was strong and manly and good to
look upon.
"Power!" he retorted. "That's only one of the hundred things they don't
give us, Mike. Look at that steam-gauge--freezing right where she
stands!"
"'Tis so," assented Gallagher. "She'd be dead and shtiff in tin minutes
be the clock if we'd lave her be in this drift."
Ford motioned the engineer aside and took the throttle himself. It was
the third day out from Cherubusco, the station at the foot of the
mountain; and in the eight-and-forty hours the engine, plow and crew of
twenty shovelers had, by labor of the cruelest, opened eleven of the
thirteen blockaded miles isolating Saint's Rest, the mining-camp
end-of-track in the high basin at
the head of the pass.
The throttle opened with a jerk under the superintendent's hand. There
was a snow-choked drumming of the exhaust, and the driving-wheels spun
wildly in the flurry beneath. But there was no inch of forward motion,
and Ford gave it up.
"We're against it," he admitted. "Back her down and we'll put the
shovelers at it again while you're nursing her up and getting more
steam. We're going to make it to Saint's Rest to-day if the Two-six has
to go in on three legs."
Gallagher pulled the reversing lever into the back gear and sent the
failing steam whistling into the chilled cylinders with cautious little
jerks at the throttle. The box-plow came out of the clutch of its snow
vise with shrillings as of a soul in torment, and the bucking outfit
screeched coldly down over the snowy rails to the "let-up," where the
shovelers' box-car had been uncoupled.
Ford swung off to turn out the shoveling squad; an-