a bit warmer with the down
grade, and Barry, in spite of his fatigue, in spite of the
disappointment of a disabled car, felt at least the joy of having
conquered the thing which had sought to hold him back, the happiness of
having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of knowing
that he now was on the down trail. The grade lessened for a few
hundred feet, and the machine slowed. Houston pressed on the clutch
pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became steeper
again. Then he sought once more to shift into gear,--and stopped short!

Those few moments of coasting had been enough. Overheated, distended,
the bearings had cooled too suddenly about the crank shaft and frozen
there with a tightness that neither the grinding pull of the starter
nor the heavy tug of the down grade could loosen. Once more Barry
Houston felt his heart sink in the realization of a newer, a greater
foreboding than ever. A frozen crank shaft meant that from now on the
gears would be useless. Fourteen miles of down grade faced him. If he
were to make them, it must be done with the aid of brakes alone. That
was dangerous!

He cupped his hands and called,--in the vain hope that the stories of
Hazard Pass and its loneliness might not be true, after all. But the
only answer was the churning of the bank-full stream a hundred yards
away, the thunder of the wind through the pines below, and the eerie
echo of his own voice coming back to him through the snows.
Laboriously he left the machine and climbed back to the summit, there
to seek out the little tent house he had seen far at one side and which
he instinctively knew to be the rest room and refreshment stand of the
summer season. But he found it, as he had feared he would find it, a
deserted, cold, napping thing, without a human, without a single
comfort, or the possibility of fire or warmth through the night.
Summer, for Hazard Pass, at least, still was a full month away. For a
moment he shivered within it, staring about its bleak interior by the
aid of a flickering match. Then he went outside again. It was only a
shell, only a hope that could not be realized. It would be less of a
hardship to make the fight to reach the bottom of the Pass than to
attempt to spend the night in this flimsy contraption. In travel there
would be at least action, and Barry clambered down the hill to his
machine.

Again he started, the brake bands squeaking and protesting, t