Tuesday morning the tall roadmaster came down fresh as sunshine and all day he worked with Bucks and the despatchers watching the line. The Spider raced like the Missouri, and the men at the bridge sent in panic messages every night and morning, but Hailey lit his pipe with their alarms. "That bridge will go when the mountains go," was all he said. Tuesday was his wedding date, old Denis told Peeto; it was Hailey's wooden wedding, and when he found everybody knew they were going to have a little spread over at the cottage, Hailey invited the boys up for the evening. Just a little celebration, Hailey said, and everybody he spoke wrung his hand and slapped his iron shoulders till Hailey echoed good cheer through and through. Callahan was going over; Bucks had promised to look in, and Ed Peeto and the boys had a little surprise for Hailey, had it in the dark of the baggage-room in the Wickiup, a big Morris chair. No one would ever guess how it landed at Medicine Bend, but it was easy. Ed Peeto had pulled it badly demoralized out of a freight wreck at the Sugar Buttes and done it over in company screws and varnish to surprise Hailey. The anniversary made it just right, very hot stuff, Ed Peeto said, and the company had undoubtedly paid a claim voucher, for it--or would. It was nine o'clock, night, and every star blinking when Hailey looked in again at the office for the track-walkers' reports and the Railway weather bulletins. Bucks, Callahan, and Peeto sat about Duffy, who in his shirt-sleeves threw the stuff out off the sounder as it trickled in dot and dash, dot and dash over the wires. The west wire was good but east everything below Peace River was down. We had to get the eastern reports around by Omaha and the south--a good thousand miles of a loop--but bad news travels even round a Robin Hood loop. And Wild Hat came first from the west with a stationary river and the Loup creek falling--clear--good night. And Ed Peeto struck the table heavily and swore it was well in the west. Then from the east came Prairie Portage, all the way round, with a northwest rain, a rising river, and anchor ice pounding the piers badly, track in fair shape and--and-- The wire went wrong. As Duffy knit his eyes and tugged and cussed a little the wind outside took up the message and whirled a bucket of rain against the windows. But the wires wouldn't right and stuff that no man could get tumbled in like a dictionary upside down. And Bucks and Callahan and Hailey and Peeto smoked, silent, and listened to the deepening drum of the rain on the roof. Then Duffy wrestled mightily yet once more, and the long way came word of trouble in the Omaha yards with the river at twenty-two feet and cutting; rising at Bismarck one foot an hour. "Hell to pay on the Missouri, of course," growled the foreman, staring single-eyed at the inoffensive bulletin. "Well, she don't run our way; let her boil, damn her."