"Ah! I pass to-day the Blackburn mill. They have shovel out about the sawshed. They have the saw going,--they keep at work, when there are the women and the babies who starve, when there are the cattle who are dying, when there is the country that is like a broken thing. But they work--for themself! They saw the log into the tie--they work from the piles of timber which they have about the sawmill, to store up the supply. They know that we do not get our machinery! They have think they have a chance--for the contract!" It brought Houston to a sharp knowledge of conditions. They had given, that the rest of the country might not suffer. Their enemies had worked on, fired with the new hope that the road over the mountains would not be opened; that the machinery so necessary to the carrying out of Houston's contract would not arrive in time to be of aid. For without the ability to carry out the first necessities of that agreement, the rest must surely and certainly fail. Long before, Houston had realized the danger that the storm meant; there had been no emergency clause in the contract. Now his hands clenched, his teeth gritted. "It almost seems that there's a premium on being crooked, Ba'tiste," came at last. "It--" Then he ceased. A shout had come from the distance. Faintly through the sifting snow they could see figures running. Then the words came,--faint, far-away, shrill shouts forcing their way through the veil of the storm. "They're going to open the road! They're going to open the road!" Here, there and back again it came, men calling to men, the few women of the little settlement braving the storm that they too might add to the gladful cry. Already, according to the telegram, snow-fighting machinery and men were being assembled in Denver for the first spurt toward Tollifer, and from there through the drifts and slides of the hills toward Crestline. Ba'tiste and Houston were running now, as fast as their snowshoes would allow, oblivious for once of the cut of the wind and the icy particles of its frigid breath. "They open the road!" boomed Ba'tiste in chorus with the rest of the little town. "Ah, _oui_! They open the road. The Crestline Railroad, he have a heart after all, he have a--" "Any old time!" It was a message bearer coming from the shack of a station. "They're not going to do it--it's the M. P. & S. L." "Through the tunnel?" "No. Over the hill. According to the message, the papers hammered the stuffing out of the Crestline road. But you've got to admit that they haven't got either the motive power or the money. The other road saw a great chance to step in and make itself solid with this country over here. It's lending the men and the rolling stock. They're going to open another fellow's road, for the publicity and the good will that's in it." A grin came to Houston's lips,--the first one in weeks. He banged Ba'tiste on his heavily wadded shoulder.