Part 28 (1/2)

”I know. I'll call Denver. But I don't know what chance there is--the road's been waiting for a chance to go into bankruptcy, anyway--since this new Carrow Point deal is about through. They haven't got any money--you know that, Ba'tiste. It's cheaper for them to shut down for six weeks than to try to keep running. That fifty thousand they lost on that snowplow just about put the crimp in 'em. It might cost a couple of hundred thousand more to keep the road open. What's the result? It's easier to quit. But I'll try 'em--”

He turned to the key and hammered doggedly. Only soggy deadness answered. He tested his plugs and tried again. In vain. An hour later, he still was there, fighting for the impossible, striving to gain an answer from vacancy, struggling to instil life into a thing deadened by ice, and drifts, and wind, and broken, sagging telegraph poles. The line was gone!

CHAPTER XIX

Until dusk they remained in the boxlike station, hoping against hope.

But the whine and snarl of the wind were the only sounds that came to them, the steady banking of the snow against the windows the only evidence of life. The telegraph line, somewhere between Tabernacle and the country which lay over the bleak, now deadly range, was a shattered thing, with poles buried in drifts, with loose strands of wire swinging in the gusts of the blizzard, with ice coated upon the insulations, and repair--until the sun should come and the snows melt--an almost impossible task.

”It'd take a guy with a diving suit to find some of them wires, I guess,” the operator hazarded, as he finally ceased his efforts and reached for his coat and hat and snowshoes. ”There ain't no use staying here. You fellows are going to sleep in town to-night, ain't you?”

There was little else to do. They fought their way to the rambling boarding house, there to join the loafing group in what pa.s.sed for a lobby and to watch with them the lingering death of day in a shroud of white. Night brought no cessation of the wind, no lessening of the banks of snow which now were drifting high against the first-story windows; the door was only kept in working order through constant sallies of the bent old boarding-house keeper, with his snow shovel.

Windows banged and rattled, with a m.u.f.fled, eerie sound; snow sifted through the tiniest cracks, spraying upon those who sat near them. The old cannon-ball stove, crammed with coal, reached the point where dull red spots enlivened its bulging belly; yet the big room was cold with non-detectable drafts, the men s.h.i.+vered in spite of their heavy clothing, and the region outside the immediate radius of the heater was barn-like with frigidity. Midnight came, and the group about the stove slept in their chairs, rather than undergo the discomfort and coldness of bed.

Morning brought no relief. The storm was worse, if anything, and the boarding-house keeper faced drifts waist high at the doorway with his first shoveling expedition of the day. The telegrapher, at the frost-caked window, rubbed a spot with his hand and stared into the dimness of the flying snow, toward his station.

”Guess I'll have t' call for volunteers if I get in there to-day.

We'll have to tunnel.”

Ba'tiste and Houston joined him. The box car that served as a station house--always an object of the heaviest drifts--was buried! The big French-Canadian pulled at his beard.

”Peuff! Eet is like the ground hog,” he announced. ”Eet is underground already.”

”Yeh. But I've got to get in there. The wire might be working.”

”So? We will help, Baree and Ba'teese. Come--we get the shovels.”

Even that was work. The town simply had ceased to be; the stores were closed, solitude was everywhere. They forced a window and climbed into the little general merchandise establishment, simply because it was easier than striving to get in through the door. Then, armed with their shovels, they began the work of tunneling to the station. Two hours later, the agent once more at his dead key, Ba'tiste turned to Houston.

”Eet is the no use here,” he announced. ”We must get to camp and a.s.semble the men that are strong and willing to help. Then--”

”Yes?”

”Then, eet will be the battle to help those who are not fortunate.

There is death in this storm.”

Again with their waist-belt guide lines, they started forth, to bend against the storm in a struggle that was to last for hours; to lose their trail, to find it again, through the straggling poles that in the old days had carried telephone wires, and at last to reach the squat, snowed-in buildings of camp. There, Ba'tiste a.s.sembled the workmen in the bunk house.

”There are greater things than this now,” he announced. ”We want the strong men--who will go back with us to Tabernacle, and who will be willing to take the risk to help the countryside. Ah, _oui_, eet is the danger that is ahead. How many of you will go?”

One after another they readied for their snowshoes, silent men who acted, rather than spoke. A few were left behind, to care for the camp in case of emergencies, to keep the roofs as free from snow as possible and to avoid cave-ins. The rest filed outside, one by one, awkwardly testing the bindings of their snowshoes, and awaiting the command. At the doorway, Ba'tiste, his big hands fumbling, caught the paws of Golemar, his wolf-dog, and raised the great, s.h.a.ggy creature against his breast.

”No,” he said in kindly, indulgent fas.h.i.+on. ”Eet is not for Golemar to go with us. The drift, they are deep. There is no crust on the snow.

Golemar, he would sink above his head. Then blooey! There would be no Golemar!”

Guide lines were affixed. Once more, huddled, clumsy figures of white, one following the other, they made the gruelling trip back to Tabernacle and the duties which they knew lay before them. For already the reports were beginning to come in, brought by storm-weakened, blizzard-battered men, of houses where the roofs had crashed beneath the weight of snow, of lost ranchmen, of bawling cattle, drifting before the storm,--to death. It was the beginning of a two-weeks'

siege of a white inferno.