The story opens on the strike--_not_ the ethics of it. There’s some hard feeling yet--too much of it to take sides one way or the other. But then, apart from that, this is not the story of a strike, it is the story of men--a story that the boys tell at night in the darkened roundhouses in the shadow of the big ten-wheelers on the pits, while the steam purrs softly at the gauges and sometimes a pop-valve lifts with a catchy sob. They tell it, too, across the tracks at headquarters, or on the road and in construction camps; but they tell it better, somehow, in the roundhouse, though it is not an engineer’s tale--and Clarihue, the night turner, tells it best of all. Set forth as it is here it takes no rank with him,--but all are not so fortunate as to have listened while Clarihue talked. Just one word more to make sure that the red isn’t against us anywhere and we’ll get to Keating and Spirlaw--just a word to say that Carleton, “Royal” Carle-ton, was superintendent then, and Regan was master mechanic, Harvey was division engineer, Spence was chief dispatcher, and Riley was trainmaster. Pretty good men that little group, pretty good railroaders--there have never been better. Some of them are bigger now in the world’s eyes, heads of systems instead of departments--and some of them will never railroad any more. However------ If you haven’t forgotten Shanley you will recall the Glacier Canon, and, most of all, you will recall the Glacier River with its treacherous sandy bed that snuggled close to the right of way and forced the track hard against the rocky walls of the mountain’s base. The havoc the Glacier played with the operating department on the night of Shanley’s memorable heroism was not the first time it had misbehaved itself, nor was it the last--that was the trouble. It washed out the road-bed with such consistent persistency, on so little provocation, and did it so effectually as to stir at last to resentment even the torpid blood of the directors down East. So they voted the sum, though it hurt, and solaced themselves with the thought that after all it was economy--which was true. There was only one thing to do against that overhospitable and affectionate little stream, and that was to get away from it; but, before proceeding to do so--in order to get elbow room to work so that the flyers and the fast mails and the traffic generally wouldn’t be hung up every time a Polack swung a pick--they pushed the track out over the chattering river on a long, temporary, hybrid trestle of wood and steel. That done, the rest was up to Spirlaw--up to Spirlaw and Keating. The plans called for the shaving down of the mountain-side, the barbering, mostly, to be done with dynamite, for the beard of the Rockies is not the down of a youth. So, when the trestle was finished, Spirlaw with a gang of some thirty Polacks moved into construction camp, promptly tore up the old track, and set themselves to the task in hand. A little later, Keating joined them.