d the priest's face as he took off his hat and laid it
beside him, and lighted the switchman's eyes looking steadily up from
the rail. The snow, curling and eddying across the little blaze of
lamps, whitened everything alike, tender and wheel and rail, the
jackscrews, the bars, and the shoulders and caps of the men. The
priest bent forward again and touched the lips and the forehead of the
switchman with his thumb: then straightening on his knees he paused a
moment, his eyes lifted up, raised his hand and slowly signing through
the blinding flakes the form of the cross, gave him the sacrament of
the dying.

"I have forgotten the man's name. I have never seen the old priest,
before or since. But, sometime, a painter will turn to the railroad
life. When he does, I may see from his hand such a picture as I saw at
that moment--the night, the storm, the scant hair of the priest blown
in the gale, the men bared about him; the hush of the death moment; the
wrinkled hand raised in the last benediction."

CHAPTER V

AN EMERGENCY CALL

In the morning the Brock special bathed in sunshine lay in the Bear
Dance yard. When it was learned at breakfast that during the night
Morris Blood had disappeared there was a protest. He had taken a train
east, Glover told them.

"But you should not have let him run away," objected Marie Brock,
"we've barely made his acquaintance. I was going to ask him ever so
many questions about mines this morning. Tell him, Mr. Glover, when
you telegraph, that he has had a peremptory recall, will you? We want
him for dinner to-morrow night; papa and Mr. Bucks are to join us, you
know."

Mr. Brock arrived the following evening but the general manager failed
them, and it was long after hope of Morris Blood had been given up that
Glover brought him in with apologies for his late arrival.

The two cars were sidetracked at Cascade, the heart of the sightseeing
country, and Glover had a trip laid out for the early morning on horses
up Cabin Creek.

When he sat down to explain to Marie where he meant to take the party
the following day Gertrude Brock had a book under the banquet lamp at
the lower end of the car. The doctor and Harrison with Mrs. Whitney
were gathered about Louise, who among the couch pillows was reading
hands. As Morris Blood, after some talk with Mr. Brock, approached,
Louise nodded to him. "We shall take no apologies for spoiling our
dinner party," said she, "but you m