ine after engine answered, in jeering, sarcastic tones, the
belligerent cries of men hiding what pounded in their hearts, driving
down by sheer will-power the primitive desires of self-preservation.
Again was the call repeated. Again was it answered by men who snarled,
men who cursed that they might not pray. And with it:

"A-w-w-w-w--right! Let 'er go!"

The whistles screamed. Up the grade, four engines to a plow, the jets
of steam shrilling upward, coughing columns of smoke leaping blackly up
the mountain side, the start was made, as the great, roaring mass of
machinery gathered speed for the impact.

A jarring crash that all but threw the men of the first crews from
their feet, and the Death Trail had been met. Then churning, snarling,
roaring, the snow flying in cloud-like masses past them, the first plow
bit its way deep into the tremendous mass, while sweating men, Barry
Houston among them, crammed coal into the open, angry fire boxes, the
sand streamed on greasy tracks,--and the cavalcade went on.

A hundred yards,--the beams knocking down the snow above and all but
covering the engines which forced their way through, only to leave as
high a mass behind; while the whole mountain seemed to tremble; while
the peaks above sent back roar for roar, and grim, determined men
pulled harder than ever at the throttles and waited,--for the breath of
night again, or the crash of the avalanche.

A shout from Old Andy. A pull at the whistle, screeching forth its
note of victory. From in front was it answered, then from the rear,
and on and on, seemingly through an interminable distance, as moonlit
night came again, as the lesser plows in the rear swept their way clear
of the Death Trail and ground onward and upward. But only for a
moment. Then, the blare of the whistles was drowned in a greater
sound, a roar that reverberated through the hills like the bellow of a
thousand thunders, the cracking and crashing of trees, the splintering
of great rocks as the snows of the granite spires above the Death Trail
loosed at last and crashed downward in an all-consuming rush of
destruction. Trees gave way before the constantly gathering mass of
white, and joined in the downfall. Great boulders, abutting rocks,
slides of shale! On it went, thundering toward the valley and the
gleaming lake, at last to crash there; to send the ten-foot thicknesses
of ice splintering like broken glass; to pyramid, to spray the whole
nether