Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/266

 What did he have to do with it? Perley was right, I leave it to you.

You've been over the division, and you know the Devil's Slide just west of the Gap from here. You know the grade—the worst in the mountains. The trains crawl up at the pace a man could walk, because they can't go any faster; and they crawl down just as slowly, because they don't dare do anything else.

I've seen the passengers get off the observation and walk—so have you. Done it yourself probably? I thought so. Extra engine on the rear end to push or hold back, and one in the middle if the train's heavy, to keep it from breaking apart—lessens the drawbar pull, you know. They're tunneling now to do away with that particular grade, but that's nothing to do with this story, nor, for that matter, with the night, some six weeks after that business at the Bend, when the local, eastbound, was climbing the Devil's Slide.

It was a dirty night outside the caboose. A storm had been racketing through the mountains all afternoon, and by the time it got dark it was a howling gale, raining hard enough to float the ties. Lee's place was on the front end, going up that bit of track, but he wasn't well that night, and the other brakeman was doing his snatch. Touch of mountain fever, or something, nothing serious; just enough to make him shiver and boil alternately over the little stove in the caboose, sitting with his back to the door. Up above him in the cupola, holding down the swivel chair where he could watch the train—that is, see his