"Your stuff's on the way, if that's any news to you," came with a worried laugh. "It left Denver on Number 312 at five o'clock this morning behind Number Eight. That's no sign that it's going to get here. Eight isn't past Tollifer yet." "Not past Tollifer?" Houston stared anxiously. "Why, it should be at the top of the range by now. It hasn't even begun to climb." "Good reason. They're getting this over there too." "The snow?" "Worse than here, if anything. Denver reported ten inches at eleven o'clock--and it's fifteen miles from the range. There was three inches when the train started. Lord knows where that freight is--I can't get any word from it." "But--" "Gone out again!" The telegrapher hammered disgustedly on the key. "The darned line grounds on me about every five minutes. I--" "Do you hear anything from Crestline--about conditions up there?" "Bad. It's even drifting in the snowsheds. They've got two plows working in 'em keeping 'em open, and another down at Crystal Lake. If things let up, they're all right. If not--they'll run out of coal by to-morrow morning and be worse than useless. There's only about a hundred tons at Crestline--and it takes fuel to feed them babies. But so far--" "Yes?" "They're keeping things halfway open. Wait a minute--" he bent over the key again--"it's opened up. Number Eight's left Tollifer. The freight's behind it, and three more following that. I guess they're going to try to run them through in a bunch. They'll be all right--if they can only get past Crestline. But if they don't--" He rattled and banged at the key for a long moment, cursing softly. Only the dead "cluck" of a grounded line answered him. Houston turned to Ba'tiste. "It looks bad." "_Oui_! But eet depen'--on the storm. Eet come this way, near' ev' spring. Las' year the road tie up--and the year before. Oh," he shrugged his shoulders, "that is what one get for living in a country where the railroad eet chase eetself all over the mountain before eet get here." "There wouldn't be any chance at the tunnel either, would there? They haven't cut through yet." "No--and they won' finish until June. That is when they figure--" "That's a long way off." "Too long," agreed Ba'tiste, and turned again toward the telegrapher, once more alert over a speaking key. But before it could carry anything but a fragmentary message, life was gone again, and the operator turned to the snow-caked window, with its dreary exterior of whirling snow that seemed to come ever faster. "Things are going to get bad in this country if this keeps up," came at last. "There ain't any too great a stock of food." "How about hay for the cattle?" "All right. I guess. If the ranchers can get to it. But that's the trouble about this snow. It ain't like the usual spring blizzard. It's dry as a January fall, and it's sure drifting. Keeps up for four or five days; they'll be lucky to find the haystacks."