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have thought it a joke," he asked, slowly, "to run a hundred and seventy miles through a blizzard?" She looked away and her sob cut him to the heart. "I did not mean to wound you," he murmured. "It's only that you don't realize what self-preservation means. I wouldn't kill a fly unnecessarily, but do you think I could stand it to see anyone in this cab mangled by a plough behind us--or to see you freeze to death if the engine should die and we're caught here twelve hours? It is our lives or theirs, that's all, and they will freeze anyway. We are only putting them out of their misery. Come; we are starting." He helped her to her seat. "Don't leave me," she faltered. The cylinder cocks were drumming wildly. "Which ever way we turn there's danger," he admitted, reluctantly, "a steam pipe might burst. You must cover your face." She drew the high collar of her coat around her neck and buried her face in her muff, but he caught up a blanket and dropped it completely over her head; then locking her arm in his own he put one heavy boot against the furnace door, and, braced between the woman he loved and the fire-box, nodded to the engineer--McGraw gave head. Furred with snow, and bearded fearfully with ice; creeping like a mountain-cat on her prey; quivering under the last pound of steam she could carry, and hissing wildly as McGraw stung her heels again and again from the throttle, the great engine moved down on the blocked cut. Unable to reckon distance or resistance but by instinct, and forced to risk everything for headway, McGraw pricked the cylinders till the smarting engine roared. Then, crouching like a jockey for a final cruel spur he goaded the monster for the last time and rose in his stirrups for the crash. With never a slip or a stumble, hardly reeling in her ponderous frame, the straining engine plunged headlong into the curve. Only once, she staggered and rolled; once only, three reckless men rose to answer death as it knocked at their hearts; but their hour was not come, and the engine struggled, righted, and parted the living drift from end to end. CHAPTER XVIII DAYBREAK Crouching under the mountains in the grip of the storm Medicine Bend slept battened in blankets and beds. All night at the Wickiup, O'Neill and Giddings, gray with anxiety, were trying to keep track of Glover's Special. It was the only train out that night on the mountain division. For the first hour or tw
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