After the train pulled out, the wind shifted and the rain changed into a snow which, driven from the mountains, thickened on the wet window in front of the operator's table. A message came for the night yardmaster, and the operator, seeing the head-light of the switch-engine which was working close by, put on his cap and stepped out to deliver the message. As he opened the waiting-room door, a man confronted him--the bearded man who had taken the woman and children to the train. Bucks saw under the visor of a cloth cap, a straight white nose, a dark eye piercingly keen, and a rather long, glossy, black beard. It was the passenger conductor, David Hawk. Without speaking, Hawk held out his hand with a five-dollar bank note in it. "What is this?" asked Bucks. "The money you gave the woman." Bucks, taking the bill, regarded his visitor with surprise. "Where did you get this?" "What's that to you?" "But----" "Don't ask questions," returned Hawk brusquely. "You've got your money, haven't you?" "Yes, but----" "That's enough." And with Bucks staring at him, Hawk, without a word or a smile, walked out of the station. But Bill Dancing had seen the incident and was ready to answer Bucks's question as he turned with the money in his hand. "That is Dave Hawk," explained Dancing. "Dave hates a sneak. The way he got the money from the woman's husband was probably by telling him if he didn't pay for his wife's ticket and add enough to feed her and her babies to the river he would blow his head off. Dave doesn't explain things especially." Bucks put the money in his pocket and started on with his message. The yards covered the wide flat along the river. Medicine Bend was then the western operating point for the railroad and the distributing point for all material used in the advancing construction through the mountains. Not until he left the shelter of the station building did he realize the force of the storm that was now sweeping across the flat. The wind had swung into the northwest and blew almost a gale and the snow stung his face as he started across the dark yard. There were practically no lights at all beyond the platform except those in the roundhouse, too far away to be seen, but the operator saw the moving head-light of the switch-engine and hastened across the slippery tracks toward it. The crew were making up a material train to send west and the engine was snorting and puffing among long strings of flat cars loaded with rails, ties, stringers, and bridge timbers.