Sleepy Cat town was but just rubbing its eyes next morning when the

Brock train pulled in from Cascade. Clouds rolling loosely across the

mountains were pushing the night into the west, and in the east wind

promise of day followed, soft and cool.

On the platform in the gray light three men were climbing into the

gangway of a switch-engine, the last man so long and so loosely put

together that he was taking, as he always took when he tried to get

into small quarters, the chaffing of his companions on his size. He

smiled languidly at Callahan's excited greeting, and as they ran down

the yard listened without comment to the story of the washout. No

words were needed to convey to Glover or to Blood the embarrassment of

the situation. Freight trains crowded every track in the yard, and the

block of twelve hours indicated what a two-day tie-up would mean. In

the cañon the roadmasters were already taking measurements and section

men were lining up track that had been lifted and wrenched by the

water. Callahan and Blood did the talking, but when they left the

flooded roadbed and Glover took a way up the cañon wall it became

apparent what the mountain engineer's long legs were for. He led, a

quick, sure climber, and if he meant by rapidly scaling the bowlders to

shut off Callahan's talk the intent was effective. Nothing more was

said till the three men, followed by the roadmasters, had gained a

ledge, fifty feet above the water, that commanded for a quarter of a

mile a view of the cañon.

They were standing above the mouth of Dry Dollar Creek, opposite the

point of rocks called the Cat's Paw, and Glover, pulling his hat brim

into a perspective, looked up and down the river. The roadmasters had

taken some measurements and these they offered him, but he did no more

than listen while they read their figures as if mentally comparing them

with notes in his memory. Once he questioned a figure, but it was not

till the roadmaster insisted he was right that Glover drew from one of

his innumerable pockets an old field-book and showed the man where he

had made his error of ten feet in the disputed measurement.

"Bucks said last night you knew all this track work," remarked Callahan.

"I helped Hailey a little here when he rebuilt three years ago. The

track was put in then as well as it ever can be put in. The fact

simply is this, Callahan, we shall never be safe here. What must be

done is to tunnel Sleepy Cat, get out of the infernal cañon with the

main line and use this for the spur around the tunnel. When your

message came last night, Morris and I took the chance to tell Mr. Brock

so, and he is here this morning to see what things look like after a

cloudburst. A tunnel will save two miles of track and all the

double-heading."




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