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[THE SPIDER WATER.]

II.

On the 30th there was trouble beyond Wild Hat, and all our extra men, put out there under Healey, were fighting to Hold the Rat Valley levels where they hug the river on the west slope. It wasn't really Healey's track. Bucks sent him over there just as the emperor sent Ney, wherever he needed his right arm. Sunday, while Healey was at Wild Hat, rain began falling. Sunday it rained; Monday all through the mountains it rained; Tuesday it was raining from Omaha to Eagle Pass, with the thermometer climbing for breath and the barometer flat as an adder—and the Spider woke. Woke with the April water and the June water and the storm water all at once.

Trackwalkers Tuesday night flagged Number One, and reported the Spider wild, with heavy sheet ice running. A wire from Bucks brought Healey out of the west and into the east, and brought him to reckon for the last time with his ancient enemy.

He was against it Wednesday with dynamite. All the day, all the night, all the next day the sullen roar of the giant powder shook the forming jam above the bridge, and after two days Healey wired, "Ice out," and set back without a minute's sleep for home. Saturday night he slept and Sunday all day and Sunday night. Monday about noon Bucks sent up to ask, but Healey still slept. They asked back by the lad whether they should wake him. Bucks sent word, "No."

It was late Tuesday morning when the tall roadmaster came down, and he was fresh as sunshine. All day he sat with Bucks and the dispatchers watching the line. The Spider raced mad, and the watchers sent in panic messages, but Healey put them in his pipe. "That bridge will go when the mountains go," was all he said.

Nine o'clock that night every star was blinking when Healey looked in for the trackwalkers' reports and the railroad weather bulletins. Bucks, Callahan, and Peeto sat about Martin Duffy, the dispatcher, who in his shirt sleeves threw the stuff off the sounder as it trickled in dot and dash, dot and dash over the wires.