Noon came—a dark noon without a sun; a noon marked by no hour of rest for these toilers. Back in the wrecking-car a great boiler of coffee steamed and bubbled; the cook carried pails of it among the men, who paused only long enough to swallow a big dipperful. Even Allan, who had no taste for it, drank deep and long, and he was astonished at the flood of warm vigour it seemed to send through him. Every half-hour this coffee was passed around, strong and black and stimulating. It was a stimulation for which the men would pay later on in limp reaction, but it did its work now. Experience had proved that no other means was so good as this to sustain men against fatigue, hour after hour, and to drive away sleep from the brain. Time was when the railroad company had experimented with other stimulants, but they had long since been discarded. Still the rain descended, and a biting wind from the north turned the weather steadily colder and colder. A sheet of sleet formed over the coal, welding it into a solid mass, which required the vigorous use of picks to dislodge. The men slipped and stumbled, gasping with exhaustion, but still the shovels rose and fell. Here and there, the twisted and broken track began to appear. At the side of the track the train-master called a lineman, who carried a wire up a pole and attached it to one of the wires overhead. A telegraph instrument was connected with this, and, sitting down upon the bank, the train-master ticked in to headquarters the news that the track would be clear at midnight, and repaired six hours later. In this, as in everything, the train-master knew his men. Ten minutes before midnight the last shovelful of coal was out of the way,—the track was clear,—one part of the battle had been won. But another part yet remained to fight,—the track must be rebuilt, and the work of doing it began without a moment’s delay. The twisted rails and splintered ties were wrenched out of the way; the road-bed, which had been ploughed up by the wheels of the derailed cars, was hastily levelled. From the wrecking-car gangs of men staggered under new ties and rails, which were piled along beside the track where they would be needed. At last the road-bed was fairly level again, and ties were laid with feverish energy by the light of the flaring torches, which gave the scene a weirdness which it had lacked by day. Phantoms of men moved back and forth, now disappearing in the darkness, now leaping into view again, working doggedly on, to their very last ounce of strength and endurance.