o, I'll have to lay in a stock
of bale rope."

It was beginning to snow again, big, soft flakes, and the wind, skimming
the drifts, speedily filled the broad, light rings Tisdale left in his
wake. A passenger with a baby in his arms stood on the observation
platform, and the child held out its mittened hands to him, crowing, with
little springs. They had formed an acquaintance during the delay in the
Rockies, which had grown to intimacy in the Cascades, and Hollis slipped
the carrying strap of his bag over his shoulder and stopped to toss him a
snowball, before he turned from the track. "Good-by, Joey," he said. "I am
coming back for you if there's a chance."

The operator, shivering, closed the door. "Never saw such a man," he
commented. "But if he's lived in Alaska, a Cascade blizzard would just be
a light breeze to him." He paused to put a huge stick of wood in the
stove, then, after the habit of solitary humanity, resumed his soliloquy.
"I bet he's seen life. I bet, whoever he is, he's somewheres near the top
of the ladder. I bet, in a bunch of men, he does the thinking. And I bet
what he wants, I don't care what's piled in his way, he gets."

As he descended, the trees closed behind Tisdale, rank on rank, and were
enveloped in the swaying curtain of the snow. Always a certain number
surrounded him; they seemed to march with him like a bodyguard. But he was
oblivious of the peril that from the higher peak had appeared so imminent
to Lucky Banks. When the snow-cloud lifted, the Pass was still completely
veiled from him, and the peak the prospector's party had ascended was then
cut off by the intervening ridge. He had crossed the headwaters and was
working along this slope down the watercourse, when the noise of the first
avalanche startled the gorge. A little later a far shout came to his quick
ear. He answered, but when another call reached him from a different
point, high up beyond the ridge, he was silent. He knew a company,
separated in the neighborhood of the slide, was trying to get into
communication. Then, in the interval that he waited, listening, began the
ominous roar of the mightier cataclysm. The mountain he had descended
seemed to heave; its front gave way; the ridge on which he stood trembled
at the concussion.

Instantly, before the clamor ceased and the first cries reached him,
Tisdale knew what had occurred. His sense of location told him. Then the
fact was pressed on him that some on the unfortu