Ralph stopped the engine, which had been going slower and slower each minute of the past hour. They had gotten about half the distance to Rockton. Long since, however, both engineer and fireman had fully decided that they would never make terminus that night. They had left Stanley Junction under difficulties. The snow was deep and heavy, and there was a further fall as they cleared the limits. There was no wind, but the snow came down with blinding steadiness and volume, and at Vernon they got the stop signal. The operator stated that the line ahead leading past Fordham Cut was impassable. The passenger was stalled ten miles away, and orders from Rockton were to the effect that the Overland Express should take the cut-off. This diverged into the foothills, where there were no such deep cuts as on the direct route, and where it was hoped the drifts would not be so heavy. Neither Ralph nor Fogg was familiar with their new routing. For an hour they made fair progress. Then they began to encounter trouble. They did not run a yard that the pilot wheels were not sunk to the rims in snow. Landmarks were blotted out. As they found themselves blindly trusting to the power of the giant locomotive to forge ahead despite obstacles, they were practically a lost train. It was now, as they dove bodily into a great drift choking up an embankment cut, that they realized that they had reached a definite angle in their experience of the run, and were halted for good. No. 999 barely pushed her nose far enough out of the enveloping drift, to enable Ralph by the aid of the glaring headlight to discern other drifts further ahead. "We're stalled, that's dead sure," declared Fogg. "Signal the conductor and see what the programme is." It was some time after the tooting signal that the conductor put in an appearance. He did not come along the side track. That was fairly impossible, for it would have been sheer burrow progress. He came over the top of the next car to the tender, a blind baggage, and as he climbed over the coal in the tender his lantern smashed and he presented a pale and anxious face to the view of the cab crew. "What's the prospects?" he inquired in a discouraged tone. "It looks like an all-night lay-over," reported Ralph. "There's nothing ahead, of course," said the conductor calculatingly. "There's a freight due on the in track. Behind us a freight was to come, provided No. 11 put out from Stanley Junction to-night." "Which I doubt," said Fogg. "If we could back to Vernon we'd be in better touch with something civilized," went on the conductor. "The wires are all down here." "I can try it," replied Ralph, "but without a pilot the rear car will soon come to a bump." "Give her a show, anyway," suggested the conductor. Two minutes' effort resulted in a dead stop. The young engineer knew his business well enough to understand that they were in danger of running the train off the track.