“Try it slow,” suggested Stevens.
“If we had the time,” returned McCloud; “but the snow is drifting on us. We’ve got to make a run for it if we ever get back, and we must have the engine in front of that way car with her pilot headed for the drifts. Let’s look at things.”
Dancing and Stevens, followed by McCloud, dropped out of the gangway. Mears opened the caboose door and the four men went forward to inspect the track and the trucks. In the lee of the caboose a council was held. The roar of the wind 127 was like the surge of many waters, and the snow had whitened into storm. They were ten miles from a habitation, and, but for the single track they were travelling, might as well have been a hundred miles so far as reaching a place of safety was concerned. They were without food, with a caboose packed with men on their hands, and they realized that their supply of fuel for either engine or caboose was perilously slender.
“Get your men ready with their tools, Pat,” said McCloud to Mears.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to turn the train around and put the nose of the engine into it.”
“Turn the train around––why, yes, that would make it easy. I’d be glad to see it turned around. But where’s your turntable, Mr. McCloud?” asked Mears.
“How are you going to turn your train around on a single track?” asked Stevens darkly.
“I’m going to turn the track around. I know about where we are, I think. There’s a little stretch just beyond this curve where the grade is flush with the ground. Ask your engineman to run back very slowly and watch for the bell-rope. I’ll ride on the front platform of the caboose till we get to where we want to go to work. Lose no time, Pat; tell your men it’s now or never. If we are 128 caught here we may stay till they carry us home, and the success of this little game depends on having everything ready and working quick.”
Stevens, who stayed close to McCloud, pulled the cord within five minutes, and before the caboose had stopped the men were tumbling out of it. McCloud led Mears and his foreman up the track. They tramped a hundred yards back and forth, and, with steel tapes for safety lines, swung a hundred feet out on each side of the track to make sure of the ground. “This will do,” announced McCloud; “you waited here half a day for steel a week ago; I know the ground. Break that joint, Pat.” He pointed to the rail under his foot. “Pass ahead with the engine and car about a thousand feet,” he said to the conductor, “and when I give you a signal back up slow and look out for a thirty-degree curve––without any elevation, either. Get out all your men with lining-bars.”