dlamp's glare
now beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering glass, and the
fan-shaped blaze of radiance drove on faster through the snow.

Five minutes passed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced at
the engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge of
a dusky bluff.

"You'll have to do better," he said.

"Wait till we have got her warmed up," said the man, who stood quietly
intent, his lean hand on the throttle. "Then you'll see something."

Grant sat down on a tool-locker, took out his cigar-case, and passed it to
Breckenridge who sat opposite him. Breckenridge's face was eager and there
was an unusual brightness in his eyes, for he was young and something
thrilled within him in unison with the vibration of the great machine.
There was, however, very little to see just then beyond the tense,
motionless figure of the man at the throttle and the damp-beaded face of
another forced up in the lurid glare from the furnace door. A dim
whiteness lashed the glasses, and when Breckenridge pressed his face to
one of them the blaze of radiance against which the smoke-stack was
projected blackly only intensified the obscurity they were speeding
through.

Still, there was much to feel and hear--the shrill wail of the wind that
buffeted their shelter, the bewildering throb and quiver of the locomotive
which, with its suggestion of Titanic effort, seemed to find a response in
human fibre, pounding and clashing with their burden of strain, and the
roar of the great drivers that rose and fell like a diapason. Perhaps
Breckenridge, who was also under a strain that night, was fanciful, but it
seemed to him there was hidden in the medley of sound a theme or motive
that voiced man's domination over the primeval forces of the universe, and
urged him to the endurance of stress, and great endeavour. It was, for the
most part, vague and elusive; but there were times when it rang exultingly
through the subtly harmonious din, reminding him of Wagnerian music.

Leaning forward, he touched Grant's knee. "Larry, it's bracing. The last
few months were making me a little sick of everything--but this gets hold
of one." Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw how weary his bronzed face
showed in the dim lantern light. "There was a time, two or three years
ago, when I might have felt it as you seem to do," he said. "I don't seem
to have any feeling but tiredness left me now."

"You can't let go," said Breckenri