XXIII THE DEADLOCK 311

XXIV RUIZ GREGORIO 325

XXV THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 336

XXVI THE STAR OF EMPIRE 362

EMPIRE BUILDERS

I

A MASTER OF MEN

Engine Number 206, narrow gauge, was pushing, or rather failing to push,
the old-fashioned box-plow through the crusted drifts on the uptilted
shoulder of Plug Mountain, at altitude ten thousand feet, with the
mercury at twelve below zero. There was a wind--the winter day above
timber-line without its wind is as rare as a thawing Christmas--and it
cut like knives through any garmenting lighter than fur or leather. The
cab of the 206 was old and weather-shaken, and Ford pulled the collar of
his buffalo coat about his ears when the grunting of the exhaust and the
shrilling of the wheels on the snow-shod rails stopped abruptly.

"Gar-r-r!" snarled Gallagher, the red-headed Irish engineer, shutting
off the steam in impotent rage. "The power is not in this dommed ould
camp-kittle sewin' machine! 'Tis heaven's pity they wouldn't be givin'
us wan man-sized, fightin' lokimotive on this ind of the line, Misther
Foord."

Ford, superintendent and general autocrat of the Plug Mountain branch of
the Pacific Southwestern, climbed down from his cramped seat on the
fireman's box and stood scowling at the retracting index of the
steam-gauge. When he was on his feet beside the little Irishman, you saw
that he was a young man, well-built, square-shouldered and athletic
under the muffling of the shapeless fur greatcoat; also, that in spite
of the scowl, his clean-shaven face was strong and manly and good to
look upon.

"Power!" he retorted. "That's only one of the hundred things they don't
give us, Mike. Look at that steam-gauge--freezing right where she
stands!"

"'Tis so," assented Gallagher. "She'd be dead and shtiff in tin minutes
be the clock if we'd lave her be in this drift."

Ford motioned the engineer aside and took the throttle himself. It was
the third day out from Cherubusco, the station at the foot of the
mountain; and in the eight-and-forty hours the engine, plow and crew of
twenty shovelers had, by labor of the cruelest, opened eleven of the
thirteen blockaded miles isolating Saint's Rest, the mining-camp
end-of-track in the high basin at the head of the pass.

The throttle opened with a jerk under the superintendent's hand. There
was a snow-choked drumming of the exhaust, and the driving