drawhead touched the laborers' car. Then
the reversing lever went forward with a clang, and the steam squealed
shrilly in the dry-pipe. For a thunderous second or two the
driving-wheels slipped and whirled futilely on the snowy rails.
Gallagher pounced upon the sand lever, whereat the tires suddenly bit
and held and a long-drawn, fire-tearing exhaust sobbed from the stack.

"You've got her!" shouted Ford. "Now hit it--hit it hard!"

Swiftly the huge mass of engine and plow gathered headway, the pounding
exhausts quickening until they blended in a continuous roar. The little
Irishman stayed himself with a foot against the boiler brace; the
fireman ducked under the canvas curtain and clung to the coal bulkhead;
and Ford held on as he could.

The shock came like the crashing blow of a collision. The box-plow
buckled and groaned with fine cracklings as of hard-strained timbers,
and an avalanche of snow thrown up from its inclined plane buried engine
and cab and tender in a smothering drift. Ford slid his window and
looked out.

"Good work, Michael; good work! You gained a full car-length that time.
Try it again."

Gallagher backed the plow carefully out of the cutting, and the fireman
opened the blower and nursed his fire. Again and again the wheeled
projectile was hurled into the obstruction, and Ford watched the
steadily retrograding finger of the steam-gauge anxiously. Would the
pressure suffice for the final dash which should clear the cutting? Or
would they have to stop and turn out the wretched shovelmen again?

The answer came with the fourth drive into the stubborn barrier. There
was the same nerve-racking shock of impact; but now the recoil was
followed by a second forward plunge, and Gallagher yelled his triumph
when the 206 burst through the remaining lesser drifts and shot away on
the clear track beyond.

Ford drew a long breath of relief, and the engineer checked the speed of
the runaway, stopped, and started back to couple on the car-load of
laborers.

Ford swung around and put his back to the open window.

"Let's hope that is the worst of it and the last of it for this winter,
Mike," he said, speaking as man to man. "I believe the weather will
break before we have any more snow; and next year--"

The pause was so long that Gallagher took his chance of filling it.

"Don't be tellin' me the big boss has promised us a rotary for next
winter, Misther Foord. That'd be too good to be thrue, I'm thinki