I remembered the Elk Fork, and the trestle just on the hither side of the Junction. I remembered the valley, green with trees, and populous with herds, winding down to the lake, and the pretty little town of Josephine. I remembered that gala day when we christened it. I groaned in spirit, as I thought of finding the trestle gone, after our hundred-and-fifty-mile dash through storm and flood. Yet I believed it would be gone. The blows showered upon us had beaten down my courage. I felt no shrinking from either struggle or danger; but this was merely the impulse which impels the soldier to fight on in despair, and sell his life dearly. I believed that ruin fronted us all; that our great system of enterprises was going down; that, East and West, where we had been so much courted and admired, we should become a by-word and a hissing. The elements were struggling against us. That vengeful flood had snatched at us, and barely missed; the ruthless hurricane was holding us back; and somehow fate would yet find means to lay us low. I had all day kept thinking of the lines: "Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight Like this last dim, weird battle of the west. A death-white mist slept over land and sea: Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew Down to his blood, till all his heat was cold With formless fear: and even on Arthur fell Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought." And this, thought I, was the end of the undertaking upon which we had entered so lightly, with frolic jests of piracy and Spanish galleons and pieces-of-eight, and with all that mock-seriousness with which we discussed hypnotic suggestion and psychic force! The bitterness grew sickening, as Corcoran, hearing the long whistle of the engine, said that we were coming into Barslow. The tragic foolery of giving that name to any place! Out upon the platform here, in the blinding whirl of snow. The night operator came out and talked to us of the news of the line, while the engine ran on to the tank for water. There was another telegram from Agnew, saying that the Pendleton special was on time, and that Mr. Kittrick was following us with another train "in case of need." The operator was full of wild stories of the Brushy Creek flood, caused by the thaw and the cloudburst. We cut him short in this narration, and asked him of the conditions along the Elk Fork. "She's up and boomin'," said he. "The trestle was most all under water an hour ago, and they say the ice was runnin' in blocks. You may find the track left without any underpinnin'. Look out for yourselves." "Al," said Jim slowly, "can you fire an engine?" "I guess so," said I, seeing his meaning dimly. "Why?" "Al," said he, as if stating the conclusion of a complicated calculation, "we must run this train in alone!"