fit for murder. It was these things that had kept Dan Moran awake far
into the morning.

Presently he heard a whistle, opened his eyes, looked at his watch and
then undressed and went to bed, while other workmen, more happily
situated, passed under his window on the way to work.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH

"Brush the snow off the headlight!"

"What?"

"Brush the snow off the headlight!"

It was the first time the engineer had spoken to the fireman since they
left Chicago. When they crossed the last switch and left the lights of
the city behind them he had settled down in his place, his eyes, with a
sort of dazed look in them, fixed upon the front window. The snow was
driving from the north-west so hard that it was impossible for the
engineer, even when running slowly through the country towns, to put his
head outside the cab, and now they were falling out into the night at
the rate of a mile a minute.

It was Barney Guerin's first trip as a fireman. He was almost exhausted
by the honest effort he had been making to keep the engine hot, and now
he looked at the engineer in mingled surprise and horror. He could not
believe that the man expected him to go out over the wet and slippery
running-board to the pilot and wipe the snow from the headlight glass.
He stood and stared so long that the fire burned low and the pointer on
the steam gauge went back five pounds. For the next two or three minutes
he busied himself at the furnace door, and when he finally straightened
up, half-blinded by the awful glare of the fire-box, half-dazed by being
thrown and beaten against the sides of the coal tank, the engineer said:

"Brush the snow off the _headlight_!"

The fireman opened the narrow door in front of him and the storm came in
so furiously that he involuntarily closed it again. Again he tried and
again was beaten back by the wind. Pulling his cap tight down he faced
about and stepped out with his back to the storm. Holding to the hand
railing he worked his way to the front end. One sweep of his gloved hand
swept the snow away and the great glare of the headlight flashed up the
track.

"My God! how she rolls!" exclaimed the engineer.

And she did roll.

Never before in the history of the road had the Denver Limited been
entrusted to a green crew, for the engineer was also making his maiden
trip. The day coach was almost empty. In the chair car, with four chairs
turned together, the newly-made conductor, the head bra