s.
Logs, planks, and the other flotsam of a freshet moved on in the van of
the flood.

It looked like the end of our run. What engineer would dare to dash on
at such speed over a submerged track--possibly floated from its bed,
possibly barricaded by driftwood? Was not the wave high enough to put
out the fires and kill the engine? As we met the roaring eagre we felt
the engine leap, as Schwartz's hesitation left him and he opened the
throttle. Like knight tilting against knight, wave and engine met. There
was a hissing as of the plunging of a great red-hot bar into a vat. A
roaring sheet of water, thrown into the air by our momentum, washed cab
and tender and car, as a billow pours over a laboring ship; and we stood
on the steps, drenched to the skin, the water swirling about our ankles
as we rushed forward. Then we heard the scream of triumph from the
whistle, with which Schwartz cheered us as the dripping train ran on
through shallower and shallower water, and turning, after a mile or so,
began climbing, dry-shod, the grade which led from the flooded valley
and out upon the uplands.

"Come in, Mr. Elkins," said Corcoran. "You'll both freeze out there, wet
as you are."

Not until I heard this did I realize that we were still standing on the
steps, our clothes congealing about us, peering through the now dense
gloom ahead, as if for the apparition of some other grisly foe to daunt
or drive us back.

We went in, and sat down by the roaring fire, in spite of which a chill
pervaded the car. We were now running over the divide between the valley
we had just left and that of Elk Fork. Up here on the highlands the wind
more than ever roared and clutched at the corners of the car, and
sometimes, as with the palm of a great hand, pressed us over, as if a
giant were striving to overturn us. We could hear the engine struggling
with the savage norther, like a runner breathing hard, as he nears
exhaustion. Presently I noticed fine particles of snow, driven into the
car at the crevices, falling on my hands and face, and striking the hot
stove with little hissing explosions of steam.

"We're running into a blizzard up here," said Corcoran. "It's a terror
outside."

"A terror; yes," said Jim. "What sort of time are we making?"

"Just about holding our own," said Corcoran. "Not much to spare. Got to
stop at Barslow for water. But there won't be any bad track from there
on. This snow won't cut any figure for three hours yet, and