Callahan had joined his chief to watch the situation, and they

speculated as to how the four would get out of the gulf in which they

were completely hemmed. Gertrude and her father stood near.

The eyes of the two bronzed railroad men at her side were like pilot

guides to Gertrude. When she lost the wayfarers in the gullies or

along the narrow defiles that gave them passage between towering rocks,

their eyes restored the plodding line. Callahan was the first to

detect the change from the expected course. "They are working east,"

said he, after a moment's careful observation.

"East?" echoed Bucks. "You mean west."

Callahan hung to his glass. "No," he repeated, "east--and south.

Here."

Bucks took the glass and looked a long time. "I do not understand,"

said he; "they are certainly working east. What can they be after,

east? Well, they can't go very far that way without bridging the

Devil's Cañon. Callahan," he exclaimed, with sure instinct, "they will

head south. Walt now till they appear again."

He relinquished the glass to explain to Mr. Brock where next to look

for them. There was a long interval during which they did not

reappear. Then the little file emerging from the shadow of a rock

skirted a field of snow straight to the south. There were but three

men in line. One, a little ahead, breaking path; following, two large

men tramping close together, the foremost stooping under the weight of

a man lying face upward on his back, while the man behind supported the

legs under his arms.

"They are carrying Morris Blood. He is hurt--that was to be expected.

What?" exclaimed Bucks, hardly a moment afterward, "they are crossing

the snow. Callahan, by heaven, they are walking for the south side of

Pilot, that's what it means. It is a forced march; they are making for

the mines."

Mount Pilot, from the crest that divides at Devil's Gap, rises abruptly

in a three-faced peak, the pinnacle of which lies to the south.

Several hundred feet above the base lie the group of gold-mines behind

the mountain, and a short railroad spur blasted across the southern

face runs to them from Glen Tarn. Below, the mountain wall breaks in

long steps almost vertically to the base, toward which Glover's party

was heading.

The move made new dispositions necessary. Orders flew from Bucks like

curlews, for it was more essential than ever to open the hill speedily.

The private car was run across the Hog's Back, and the news sent to the

rotary crew with injunctions to push with all effort as far at least as

the mine switch, that help might be sent out on the spur to meet the

party on the climb.

The increased activity apparent far up and down the mountain as the

word went round, the bringing up of the last reserve engines for the

hill battery, the effort to get into communication by telegraph with

the mine hospital and Glen Tarn Springs, the feverish haste of the

officials in the car to make the new dispositions, all indicated to

Gertrude the approach of a crisis--the imminence of a supreme effort to

save one life if the endeavor enlisted the men and resources of the

whole division. New gangs of shovellers strung on flat-cars were being

pushed forward. Down the hill, spent and disabled engines were

returning from the front, and while they took sidings, fresh engines,

close-coupled, steamed slowly like leviathans past them up the hill.




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