"There wouldn't be any chance at the tunnel either, would there? They haven't cut through yet."
"No—and they won' finish until June. That is when they figure—"
"That's a long way off."
"Too long," agreed Ba'tiste, and turned again toward the telegrapher, once more alert over a speaking key. But before it could carry anything but a fragmentary message, life was gone again, and the operator turned to the snow-caked window, with its dreary exterior of whirling snow that seemed to come ever faster.
"Things are going to get bad in this country if this keeps up," came at last. "There ain't any too great a stock of food."
"How about hay for the cattle?"
"All right. I guess. If the ranchers can get to it. But that's the trouble about this snow. It ain't like the usual spring blizzard. It's dry as a January fall, and it's sure drifting. Keeps up for four or five days; they'll be lucky to find the haystacks."
For a long time then, the three stood looking out the window, striving—merely for the sake of passing time—to identify the almost hidden buildings of the little town, scarcely more than a hundred yards away. At last the wire opened again, and the operator went once more to his desk. Ba'tiste and Houston waited for him to give some report. But there was none. At last:
"What is it?" Houston was at his side. The operator looked up.
"Denver asking Marionville if it can put its snowplow through and try to buck the drifts from this side. No answer yet."