In the mean time McGuire worked loyally for the company, freezing his ears and frosting his feet. One bitter cold morning a string of empties got away on the hill. All the switchmen, who were not switchmen at all, but who were drawing pay under false pretensions, jumped off in the deep snow. McGuire stayed with the train and rode them down. The agent at Malta saw them coming round the curve up toward the town, and saw McGuire signalling frantically for the safety switch,--a short spur that was put there to keep runaway cars from getting out on the main line on the time of regular trains. That was a trying moment for the station agent. If he threw McGuire in on the spur he would be shot down the hill with a half-dozen freight cars on top of him. If he let him out on to the main line, he must almost surely collide with the up-coming passenger train that had already passed Haydens and could not be caught by wire. He knew McGuire and liked him. He was awed by the great courage that could hold a single man on a runaway train on such a hill at such a time. There was something fine in the make-up of a man who could call for a switch to wreck himself to save the crew and passengers on another train. The agent signalled the yardmaster to get off, but McGuire shook his head. The agent turned his back, and McGuire went out on the main line, leaning to the curve like a man driving a fast horse on a circular course. Below the station there was a short stretch of straight track from which the wind, blowing down from Tennessee Pass, had swept the snow. The yardmaster, climbing from car to car, set the brakes as tight as he could set them; but the shoes were covered with ice, and the train, on the tangent, seemed to be increasing its speed. Now they fell into a lot of curves. McGuire began to guess that he could not hold them; but he could not get off now, even if he chose to do so, for on one hand lay the Arkansas River and on the other the rock wall of the cañon. Far down the gulch he heard a locomotive whistle, and his heart stood still. Presently he felt the brakes taking hold of the wheels. It seemed incredible, but it was so. The friction of the whirling wheels had melted the ice from the brake shoes, and now the wheels began to smoke. The curves and reverse curves helped also, and the runaway train began to slow down. He could easily jump now, if they failed to stop, for they were not making twenty miles an hour; but at that moment he heard a wild, distressing cry for brakes from a locomotive. He was riding on the rearmost car, the head end was hidden round a sharp curve, and now he saw the middle of his train hump up like a cat’s back. The first car shot up over the pilot of the head engine, cut off her stack, whistle, and one corner of her cab, but fortunately no one was hurt. That afternoon McGuire promoted the foreman to be yardmaster, went to Denver and resigned “in person;” but his resignation was not accepted. CHAPTER XVII SNOWBOUND