blustered. "Don't he know I'm
busy?"

Twelve hours more. The snow ceased. The wind died. Ten miles out of
Kansas City Martin gave the homeward-bound order for Northport, then
slumped weakly into a corner. Five minutes before he had heard the
news--news that hurt. The O.R.& T., fighting with every available man
it could summon, had partially opened its line, with the exception of
one division, hopelessly snowed under--his old, his beloved Blue
Ribbon.

"Tis me that would have kept 'er open," he mused bitterly. "And they
fired me!"

He nodded and slept. He awoke--and he said the same thing again. He
reached Northport, late at night, to roar at Jewel and the hot water
she had heated for his frost-bitten feet--then to hug her with an
embrace that she had not known since the days when her Marty wore a
red undershirt.

"And do ye be hearin?" she asked. "The Blue Ribbon's tied up! Not a
wheel----"

"Will ye shut up?" Martin suddenly had remembered something. The mail
test! Not forty-eight hours away! He blinked. One big hand smacked
into the other. "The pound of flesh!" he bellowed. "Be gar! The pound
of flesh!"

"And what are ye talkin' ----"

"Woman, shut up," said Martin Garrity. "'Tis me that's goin' to bed.
See that I'm not disturbed. Not even for Mr. Barstow."

"That I will," said Jewel--but that she didn't. It was Martin himself
who answered the pounding on the door four hours later, then, in the
frigid dining room, stared at the message which the chief dispatcher
had handed him:

GARRITY, NORTHPORT: If line is free of snow assemble all snow-fighting
equipment and necessary locomotives to handle same, delivering same
fully equipped and manned with your own force to Blue Ribbon Division
O.R. & T. Accompany this equipment personally to carry out
instructions as I would like to have them carried out. Everything
depends on your success or failure to open this line.

LEMUEL C. BARSTOW.

So! He was to make the effort; but if he failed that mail contract
came automatically to the one road free to make the test, the Ozark
Central! That was what Barstow meant! Make the effort, appear to fight
with every weapon, that the O.R. & T. might have no claim in the
future of unfairness but to fail! Let it be so! The O.R. & T. had
broken his heart. Now, at last, his turn had come!

He turned to the telephone and gave his orders. Then up the stairs he
clambered and into his clothes. Jewel snorted and awoke.

"Goo'by!" r