angway.
Mears opened the caboose door and the four men went forward to inspect
the track and the trucks. In the lee of the caboose a council was
held. The roar of the wind was like the surge of many waters, and the
snow had whitened into storm. They were ten miles from a habitation,
and, but for the single track they were travelling, might as well have
been a hundred miles so far as reaching a place of safety was
concerned. They were without food, with a caboose packed with men on
their hands, and they realized that their supply of fuel for either
engine or caboose was perilously slender.

"Get your men ready with their tools, Pat," said McCloud to Mears.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to turn the train around and put the nose of the engine
into it."

"Turn the train around--why, yes, that would make it easy. I'd be glad
to see it turned around. But where's your turntable, Mr. McCloud?"
asked Mears.

"How are you going to turn your train around on a single track?" asked
Stevens darkly.

"I'm going to turn the track around. I know about where we are, I
think. There's a little stretch just beyond this curve where the grade
is flush with the ground. Ask your engineman to run back very slowly
and watch for the bell-rope. I'll ride on the front platform of the
caboose till we get to where we want to go to work. Lose no time, Pat;
tell your men it's now or never. If we are caught here we may stay
till they carry us home, and the success of this little game depends
on having everything ready and working quick."

Stevens, who stayed close to McCloud, pulled the cord within five
minutes, and before the caboose had stopped the men were tumbling
out of it. McCloud led Mears and his foreman up the track. They
tramped a hundred yards back and forth, and, with steel tapes for
safety lines, swung a hundred feet out on each side of the track to
make sure of the ground. "This will do," announced McCloud; "you
waited here half a day for steel a week ago; I know the ground.
Break that joint, Pat." He pointed to the rail under his foot. "Pass
ahead with the engine and car about a thousand feet," he said to
the conductor, "and when I give you a signal back up slow and look
out for a thirty-degree curve--without any elevation, either. Get out
all your men with lining-bars."

The engine and caboose faded in the blur of the blizzard as the break
was made in the track. "Take those bars and divide your men into
batches of t