tened to the frosty notes of the sky-scrapers as they went through
their preliminary manoeuvers. Just as the final word was given by
Sankey, conductor in charge, the sun burst through the fleecy clouds,
and a wild cheer followed the ram out of the western yard; it was looked
on as a sign of good luck to see the sun again.

Little Neeta, up on the hill, must have seen them as they pulled out.
Surely she heard the choppy ice-bitten screech of the 566; for that was
never forgotten, whether the service was special or regular. Besides,
the head cab of the ram carried this time not only Georgie Sinclair, but
her father as well. Sankey could handle a slice-bar as well as a punch,
and rode on the head engine, where, if anywhere, the big chances would
come. What Sankey was not capable of in the train-service we never knew,
because he rose superior to every emergency that ever confronted him.

Bucking snow is principally brute force; there is very little coaxing.
West of the bluffs there was a volley of sharp tooting, like code
signals between a fleet of cruisers, and in just a minute the four
ponderous engines, two of them in the back motion, fires white and
throats bursting, steamed wildly into the canyon. Six hundred feet from
the first cut, Sinclair's whistle signaled again. Burns and Cameron and
Kennedy answered; and then, literally turning the monster ram loose
against the dazzling mountain, the crews settled themselves for the
shock.

At such a moment there is nothing to be done. If anything goes wrong,
eternity is too close to consider. There came a muffled drumming on the
steam-chests; a stagger and a terrific impact; and then the recoil, like
the stroke of a trip-hammer. The snow shot into the air fifty feet, and
the wind carried a cloud of fleecy confusion over the ram and out of the
cut. The cabs were buried in white, and the great steel frames of the
engines sprung like knitting-needles under the frightful force of the
blow. Pausing for hardly a breath, they began the signaling again; then
backed up and up and up the line; and again the massive machines were
hurled screaming into the cut. "We're getting there, Georgie," cried
Sankey when the rolling and lurching had stopped.

No one else could tell a thing about it, for it was snow and snow and
snow; above and behind and ahead and beneath. Sinclair coughed the
flakes out of his eyes and nose and mouth like a baffled collie. He
looked doubtful of the claim until th