ess, there it stood, an old
weather-beaten, two-throw, stub switch of the vintage of the ark.
Two-throw, mind you, when a one-throw switch, even in the days of its
usefulness, would have answered the purpose just as well, better for
that matter. No modern drop-handle, interlocking safety device about
it. Not at all! A handle sticking straight out like a sore thumb that
could creak around on a semi-circular guide, with a rusty pin dangling
from a rusty chain to lock it--if some itinerant section hand didn't
forget to jab the pin back into the hole it had the habit of worming
its way out of! It stood about a quarter of the way down the grade of
The Gap, which is to say about half a mile from the summit, a deserted
sentinel on guard over a deserted spur that, in the old construction
days, had been built in a few hundred yards through a soft spot in the
mountain side for camp and material stores.

As for The Gap itself, it was not exactly what might be called a nice
piece of track. Officially, the grade is an average of 4.2;
practically, it is likened to a balloon descension by means of a
parachute. It begins at the east end and climbs up in a wriggling,
twisting way, hugging gray rock walls on one side, and opening a canyon
on the other that, as you near the summit, would make you catch your
breath even to look at over the edge--it is a sheer drop. And also the
right of way is narrow, very narrow; just clearance on one side against
the rock walls, and a whole canyon full of nothingness at the edge of
the other rail, and----But there's our "clearance" now.

MacMurtrey's camp was at the summit; and MacMurtrey's work, once the
camp was fairly established and stores in, was to shave the pate of the
summit, looking to an amelioration in The Gap's grade average--that is,
its official grade average. But on the morning that Regan left Big
Cloud on No. 3, the work was not very far along--only the preliminaries
accomplished, so to speak, which were a siding at the top of the grade,
with storehouse and camp shanties flanking it.

And on the siding, that morning, just opposite the storehouse which, it
might be remarked in passing, had already received its first
requisition of blasting materials for the barbering of the grade that
was to come, a hybrid collection of Polacks, Swedes, and Hungarians
were emptying an oil-tank car and discharging supplies from some flats
and box cars; while on the main line track a red-haired man