Windows banged and rattled, with a muffled, eerie sound; snow sifted through the tiniest cracks, spraying upon those who sat near them. The old cannon-ball stove, crammed with coal, reached the point where dull red spots enlivened its bulging belly; yet the big room was cold with non-detectable drafts, the men shivered in spite of their heavy clothing, and the region outside the immediate radius of the heater was barn-like with frigidity. Midnight came, and the group about the stove slept in their chairs, rather than undergo the discomfort and coldness of bed. Morning brought no relief. The storm was worse, if anything, and the boarding-house keeper faced drifts waist high at the doorway with his first shoveling expedition of the day. The telegrapher, at the frost-caked window, rubbed a spot with his hand and stared into the dimness of the flying snow, toward his station. "Guess I'll have t' call for volunteers if I get in there to-day. We'll have to tunnel." Ba'tiste and Houston joined him. The box car that served as a station house--always an object of the heaviest drifts--was buried! The big French-Canadian pulled at his beard. "Peuff! Eet is like the ground hog," he announced. "Eet is underground already." "Yeh. But I've got to get in there. The wire might be working." "So? We will help, Baree and Ba'teese. Come--we get the shovels." Even that was work. The town simply had ceased to be; the stores were closed, solitude was everywhere. They forced a window and climbed into the little general merchandise establishment, simply because it was easier than striving to get in through the door. Then, armed with their shovels, they began the work of tunneling to the station. Two hours later, the agent once more at his dead key, Ba'tiste turned to Houston. "Eet is the no use here," he announced. "We must get to camp and assemble the men that are strong and willing to help. Then--" "Yes?" "Then, eet will be the battle to help those who are not fortunate. There is death in this storm." Again with their waist-belt guide lines, they started forth, to bend against the storm in a struggle that was to last for hours; to lose their trail, to find it again, through the straggling poles that in the old days had carried telephone wires, and at last to reach the squat, snowed-in buildings of camp. There, Ba'tiste assembled the workmen in the bunk house. "There are greater things than this now," he announced. "We want the strong men--who will go back with us to Tabernacle, and who will be willing to take the risk to help the countryside. Ah, _oui_, eet is the danger that is ahead. How many of you will go?"