Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/158

146 Ryan smiled at "Noah" North and he smiled back over the boiler head as they whistled for Gunnison, but their smiles soon changed to sadness, for the despatcher came out with an order for them to continue over another division. This took them through the Black Cañon, which was then to trainmen what the Black Sea is to sailors. A new road in a mountain country is always dangerous until the scenery gets settled, and the loosened rocks roll down and the cuts are properly sloped; and this piece of track through the Black Cañon was then especially so, though not now.

They were nearing the place where Mclvor had found the rock. The night was clear, the rail good, the grade easy, and they were turning the curves gracefully, while now and then the steam—for she was always hot—escaping from the dome of the Rockaway screamed in the cañon, and startled a lion or caused a band of elk or deer to scamper away up a side cañon.

An excursion party, in heavy wraps, sat in an open observation car at the rear of the train, viewing the wonderful scenery, made weird by the stillness of the night. How wild the walls