rave it out. Still,
still, he had intended to be there, not only to press the ultimate
purpose, but to--ease her through. Banks might be abrupt. He was sorry. He
was so sorry that though he had tramped, mushed a mile, he faced about,
and, in the teeth of a bitter wind, returned to the station.

The snow was falling thickly; it blurred his tracks behind him; the crest
of a drift was caught up and carried, swirling, into the railroad cut he
had left, and a great gust tore into the office with him. The solitary
operator hurried to close the door and, shivering, stooped to put a huge
stick of wood in the stove. "It's too bad," he said. "Forgot the main
point, I suppose. If this keeps up, and your train moves to-morrow, it
will be through a regular snow canyon. I just got word your head rotary is
out of commission, but another is coming up from the east with a gang of
shovellers. They'll stop here for water. It's a chance for you to ride
back to your train."

"Thank you, I will wait," Tisdale answered genially. "But I like walking
in this mountain air. I like it so well that if the blockade doesn't lift
by to-morrow, I am going to mush through and pick up a special to the
coast."

While he spoke, he brushed the snow from his shoulders and took off his
hat and gloves. He stood another moment, rubbing and pinching his numb
hands, then went over to the desk and filled a telegraph blank. He laid
down the exact amount of the charges in silver, to which he added five
dollars in gold.

The operator went around the counter and picked up the money. For an
instant his glance, moving from the message, rested on Tisdale's face in
curious surprise. This man surely enjoyed the mountain air. He had tramped
back in the teeth of a growing blizzard to send an order for violets to
Hollywood Gardens, Seattle. The flowers were to be expressed to a lady at
Scenic Hot Springs.

After that Tisdale spent an interval moving restlessly about the room. He
read the advertisements on the walls, studied the map of the Great
Northern route, and when the stove grew red-hot, threw open the door and
tramped the platform in the piping wind. Finally, when the keyboard was
quiet, the operator brought him a magazine. The station did not keep a
news-stand, but a conductor on the westbound had left this for him to
read. There was a mighty good yarn--this was it--"The Tenas Papoose." It
was just the kind when a man was trying to kill time.

Tisdale took the p