“You Mr. Cromwell?” said a big, red-faced, heavily bearded man in a red plaid lumberman’s coat.

“Yes, I’m Cromwell.”

“We heard your train come onboard. I’m Captain Jack Boss, at your service.”

The laid-back attitude of Boss, who remained sitting, and his two-man crew, who showed utmost indifference, angered Cromwell. “It is of the greatest importance that we get under way immediately.”

Boss shook his head. “No can do. The lake is kicking up. It’s best if we wait until the storm blows over.”

As calmly as if he were lighting a cigar, Cromwell pulled his .38 Colt from a coat pocket and shot one of the crewmen in the forehead. The surprise was so complete the crewman slumped over and stared blankly, as if he were still reading newsprint.

“Good God!” was all Boss uttered, his face frozen in shock.

Cromwell pointed his gun at the face of the other crewman, who began to shake uncontrollably. “You will get this boat under way immediately or he goes, too.”

“You’re crazy,” gasped Boss.

“My attendant has already cast off the lines. I suggest you waste no more time protesting.”

Boss looked at his dead crewman and slowly, dazedly, came to his feet. He glared at Cromwell with a combined expression of disgust and fury. “You might as well shoot the rest of us,” he said slowly. “We’ll all die before we get to the other shore.”

“A chance we have to take,” Cromwell said, his voice hard and venomous.

Boss turned to his crewman, Mark Ragan. “You’ll have to operate the engine alone.”

Ragan, a young man yet to see seventeen, nodded with a pale face. “I can do it.”

“Then stoke the boiler and get up enough steam to make good headway.”

The crewman left the galley quickly and dropped down a ladder to the engine room.

Boss, closely followed by Cromwell, climbed to the wheelhouse.

Cromwell stared at Boss. “Do not even think about going against my instructions, Captain, or your crewman in the engine room will die. Nor will I have any reservation of killing you, should you not take me to the rail landing on the far shore.”

“You’re diabolical scum,” Boss said, his face twisted with rage.

Cromwell laughed and gave Boss a look as cold as death. Then he turned and left the wheelhouse.

As he walked back to his palace boxcar, he heard the shrill blare of a steam whistle. It sounded as if it came from no more than a few hundred yards away. And then his ears caught the hiss of steam and the clatter of locomotive drive wheels.

Through the debris hurled by the gusts from the chinook, he saw a large engine materialize from the gloom.

Too late, he thought complacently. The Kalispell had already drifted five feet from the end of the dock. No one or nothing could stop him now. Smiling to himself, he made his way back the boxcar and climbed inside.