ng its perfume, held it
lightly to her lips.

"You thoroughbred!" said Frederic thickly.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EVERLASTING DOOR

Sometime during the night of the fifteenth, the belated Chinook wind began
to flute through the canyon, and towards dawn the guests at Scenic Hot
Springs were wakened by the near thunder of an avalanche. After a while,
word was brought that the Great Northern track was buried under forty feet
of snow and rock and fallen trees for a distance of nearly a mile. Later a
rotary steamed around the high curve on the mountain and stopped, like a
toy engine on an upper shelf, while the Spokane local, upon which Banks
had expected to return to Weatherbee, forged a few miles beyond the hotel
to leave a hundred laborers from Seattle. Thin wreaths of vapor commenced
to rise and, gathering volume with incredible swiftness, blotted out the
plow and the snow-sheds, and meeting, broke in a storm of hail. The cloud
lifted, but in a short interval was followed by another that burst in a
deluge of rain, and while the slope was still obscured, a report was
telegraphed from the summit that a second avalanche had closed the east
portal of Cascade tunnel, through which the Oriental Limited had just
passed. At nightfall, when the work of clearing away the first mass of
debris was not yet completed, a third slide swept down seven laborers and
demolished a snow-shed. The unfortunate train that had been delayed so
long in the Rockies was indefinitely stalled.

The situation was unprecedented. Never before in the history of the Great
Northern had there been so heavy a snowfall in the Cascades; the sudden
thaw following an ordinary precipitation must have looked serious, but the
moving of this vast accumulation became appalling. All through that day,
the second night the cannonading of avalanches continued, distant and
near. At last came an interlude. The warm wind died out; at evening there
was a promise of frost; and only the voice of the river disturbed the
gorge. Dawn broke still and crisp and clear. The mountain tops shone in
splendor, purple cliffs stood sharply defined against snow-covered slopes,
and whole companies in the lower ranks of the trees had thrown off their
white cloaks. It was a day to delight the soul, to rouse the heart, invite
to deeds of emulation. Even Frederic was responsive, and when after
breakfast Marcia broached a plan to scale the peak that loomed southeast
of the pass, he grasped a