I followed the curves of the railway beyond Finse. Whole sections of the track were invisible, running through great timber snowsheds completely covered by drifts. They were like tunnels through the snow. Here and there, between the sheds, the line showed as a dark cleft cut through the snow, the sides as vertical as if they'd been sliced with a knife. Only on the bends were the lines visible — two slender black threads gleaming dully in the sun. Farther still to the left, a great plume of white vapour moved steadily along the track. At first I thought it was a locomotive. I could see the black shape of it just showing above the sides of the snow cutting. Then I realised it was a snow-plough. The plume of vapour was snow being flung out from above the spinning rotary snow-cutters.
Jill suddenly gripped my arm as faintly echoing through the mountains came the mournful note of a siren. She was pointing away to the right where the track curved round a shoulder of the mountains towards Bergen. Just below the tip of the shoulder a plume of smoke showed for an instant. 'It's the Oslo train,' she said. 'See it?' A moment later the plume of smoke was visible again and I could see the dark line of the train coming out of the tunnel-like entrance of one of the snowsheds. For perhaps half a minute it crawled along in the sunshine. Then it was gradually swallowed up under the snow as it entered another snowshed. Little puffs of smoke came from the side of the shed which was not covered with snow. I couldn't see the train, but I could measure its progress as it burrowed along under the snow by those little wisps of smoke that appeared and then hung motionless in the frosty air.
'Do you think George really meant it when he said he was going to catch that train?' Jill asked.
'I don't know,' I answered. 'But it certainly looks like it. These must be his and Dahler's tracks. Surely nobody else would have been out in that snow? And if they are his tracks, then he's certainly making for the railway.'
'But look,' she said, 'they're not going down to Finse. They're curving away to the left. The next station down the line is Ustaoset. That's more than twenty miles away. He'd never make it in time. And he can't jump the train.'
'Well, there's only one way to find out,' I said.
She nodded and we started off again. The ski tracks led farther and farther away to the left until Finse lay over my right shoulder. The Oslo train was drawing into Finse station now.
I could see the black snake-line of the carriages slowing to standstill. A white plume of steam burst from the engine as though it were blown with the long climb up from sea level to over four thousand feet. I began to wonder whether in fact we were following the right ski tracks.
Then round a small nut of rock we came upon the figure of a man struggling up towards us. He looked up as we bore down on him. And then suddenly he shouted, 'Is that you, Jill?' It was Curtis. I recognised him as soon as I heard his voice.
'Yes,» Jill called back.