ed, and for an interval he was forced to mush laboriously
through soft drifts. Then he came to a first bare spot. It was in crossing
this rough ground that Frederic showed signs of returning consciousness.
But Banks gave him no attention. He had caught a strange sound on the
wind. Others, far off, rose while he listened. Presently, looking back
beyond the end of the ridge that divided the upper gorge, he saw twinkling
lights. They were the lanterns of the searchers at the wrecked train.

The little man did not exclaim. He did not pray. His was the anguish of
soul which finds no expression.

CHAPTER XXVII

KISMET. AN ACT OF GOD

Afterwards, some who compared the slope where the Oriental Limited had
stood, with the terrible pitches along the lower switchback, said: "It was
Fate;" and the defense in the damage suits against the Great Northern,
which were decided in favor of the company, called that catastrophe at
Cascade tunnel "An Act of God." In either solution, the fact that counted
was that no avalanche had occurred at this point before; mountain men had
regarded it as absolutely safe. At noon that day, a rumor reached the
stalled train that a slide at the front had struck one of the rotaries.
Laborers, at their own peril, had excavated the crew, but the plow was out
of commission, and the track was buried sixty feet under fresh tons of
snow and rock and fallen timber. The Limited could not move within
forty-eight hours, perhaps three days.

Tisdale picked up his bag and went out to the observation platform. He
knew that to attempt to follow the railroad through those swaths the
avalanches had left, under the burned skeletons of trees ready to topple
at the first pressure of other bodies of snow, was to take one's life
needlessly in his hands; but there was another way. The slope from the
track at the portal dipped through a park of hemlock and fir, and the
blaze that had swept the lower mountainside had not reached this timber;
the great boughs, like fishers' nets, supported their dripping
accumulations. Also, at this altitude, there was no undergrowth. To make
the drop directly into the canyon and follow the river down to Scenic Hot
Springs meant little more to him than a bracing tramp of a few hours.

Snowshoes were a necessity, and the demand at the little station had long
exceeded the supply, but the operator was able to furnish the length of
bale rope Tisdale asked of him. From the office door, where