The flashlight was in the hands of a truck-driver whose big truck had slewed around, blocking both lanes. The Superintendent knew that no professional truck-driver would have got into such a jam by himself; so without pausing he climbed around the truck’s bumper, and saw two cars stalled just beyond it. They were at crazy angles to the road, and one of them had a half-crushed fender. A man in a long city overcoat and a soft felt hat covered with snow was scraping away ineffectively with a jack-handle behind one of the cars, trying to put on chains.

The Superintendent grabbed him by the shoulder. “Anybody hurt here?”

The man, frightened and shaken, yielded to the voice of authority without questioning.

“Nobody hurt. That truck—”

“Never mind the truck. You ran past tire-chain warnings yourself.”

But it was no time to argue. Knowing now that nobody needed first-aid, the Superintendent scrambled back across the truck, and grabbed the truck-driver.

“Hey, Jack,” he said, “I’m road-superintendent here. Take that flashlight and go back and flag all the cars coming down grade. Don’t let ’em block the left-hand lane any more than it is already.”

“O.K., boss.”

The Superintendent was thankful again for truck-drivers; they knew there was more to driving a car than just sitting behind the wheel. Just then a big deep voice spoke out at the Superintendent’s ear.

“Anything I can do, officer?”

The Superintendent overlooked being mistaken for a snow-covered highway patrolman. The man who spoke was in a city overcoat and a felt hat, much like the man who was trying to dig his car out with the jack-handle. But he was different. The Superintendent recognized his type at once. Most drivers of private cars were idiots in an emergency, but now and then one kept his head. Sometimes a man like that, wearing good clothes, would straighten out a jam on his own initiative; people would take advice from him when they wouldn’t from a truck-driver.

“Sure you can help,” said the Superintendent. “See if those cars in the left-hand lane can back up. If they can, help ’em do it, and we’ll get one lane clear above the block.”

The Superintendent climbed back across the truck again, and went past the man who was still digging in the snow with the jack-handle. Below the block, things looked the same as on the upper side—cars jammed thick into both lanes—big cars and little, old and new, a jalopy with a broken window plugged with a quilt. Already windshields were plastered over, and snow was drifting between the cars. Enough headlights were still burning to throw a yellow glare over everything.