urrage's general store, which
was decrepit Hilarity's sole remaining enterprise, and there to brag
and maunder over the dead town's former glory.

The fact that certain of Hod's jugs never tilted to the filling of the
vinegar bottles or molasses pails of the women, not only served to
insure unflagging attendance, but the sale of their contents afforded
the storekeeper a small but steady income which more than offset any
loss incident to the preoccupied inroads upon his cracker barrel.

The sound of the once familiar whistle brought the men tumbling from
Burrage's door, while up and down the deserted street aproned forms
stood framed in the doorways, beflanked by tousled heads which gazed
wonder-eyed from behind tight-gripped skirts.

Not a person in town, except the very newest citizens, and they were
too young to care--for nobody ever came to Hilarity except by the stork
route--but recognized old No. 9's whistle.

Strange, almost apologetic, it sounded after its years of silence; not
at all like the throaty bellow of derision with which the long,
vestibuled coast trains thundered through the forsaken village.

A brakeman leaped from the cab and ran ahead. Stooping, he cursed the
corroded lock of the unused switch which creaked and jarred to the pull
of the lever as old No. 9 headed wheezily onto the rust-eaten rails of
the rotting spur.

An hour later she puffed noisily away, leaving Moncrossen's crew
encamped in the deserted cabins and dilapidated saloons of the worn-out
town.

Moncrossen, by making use of old tote-roads, saved about forty of the
eighty miles of road building which lay between Hilarity and the Blood
River.

Toward the end of October the work was completed, the camp buildings
erected, and a brush and log dam thrown across the river at the narrows
of a white water rapid.

Swampers and axe-men set to work building skidways and cross-hauls, and
the banks of the river were cleared for the roll-ways. The ground was
still bare of snow, but the sawyers were "laying them down," and the
logs were banked at the skidways.

Then one morning the snow came.

Quietly it fell, in big, downy flakes that floated lazily to earth from
the even gray of the cloud-spread sky, tracing aimless, zigzag patterns
against the dark green background of the pines, and covering the brown
needles of the forest floor and the torn mold of the skidways with a
soft blanket of white.

The men sprang eagerly to their work--he