led
to the engineer. The engineer did not attempt to answer; taking
lanterns, the two men climbed out of the cab to investigate. The wind
swept through the broken pane and Gertrude slipped down from her seat
with relief, while the fireman caught up a big double handful of waste
from his box and stuffed it into the broken pane. So intense had the
strain of silence become that she would have spoken to him, but the
sudden stop sprung the safety-valve, and overwhelmed with its roar she
could only watch him in wretched suspense shake the grate, restore his
drip can, start his injector, and hammer like one pursued by a fury at
the coal. Since she had entered the cab this man had never for one
minute rested.

McGraw, followed by Glover, climbed back under the canvas from the
gangway. Their clothing, moist with the steam of the cab, had
stiffened the instant the wind struck it. McGraw hastening to the
furnace seized the chain, jerked open the door and motioned to Glover
to come to the fire, but Glover shook his head behind McGraw, his hands
on the little man's shoulders, and forced him down in front of the
fearful blaze to thaw the gloves from his aching fingers.

All the horror of the storm they were facing had passed Gertrude unfelt
until she saw the silent writhing of the crouching man. This was three
minutes of the wind that Glover had asked her not to tempt; this was
the wind she had tempted. She was glad that Glover, bending over the
engineer, holding one hand to the fire as he gazed into it, did not
look toward her. From cap to boots he was frozen in snow and ice. The
two men, without speaking, left the cab again. They were gone longer.
Gertrude felt chills running over her.

"This is a terrible night," she said to the fireman.

"Yes, ma'am, it's pretty bad. I don't know why they'd send white men
out into this. I wouldn't send a coyote out."

"They are staying out so long this time," she murmured. "Could they
possibly freeze while they are out, do you think?"

"Sure, they could; but them boys know too much for that. Mr. Glover
stays out a week at a time in this kind; he don't care. That man Paddy
McGraw is his head engineer in the bucking gang; he don't care--them
fellows don't care. But I've got a wife at the Cat and two babies,
that's my fix. I never cared neither when I was single, but if I'm
carried home now it's seven hundred and fifty relief and a thousand
dollars in the A. O. U. W., and th