About one-thirty the first convoy started through. The orange-colored highway truck led it down from the summit. Following in its tire-tracks came a dozen cars, three trucks and a bus. Another highway car followed to be sure everyone got through safely. By no stretch of imagination could anyone say there was a two-lane passageway; in places the question was whether there was a passageway at all. As usual, some of the drivers were nervous and frightened; the Superintendent always wondered why such people ever tried the Pass in winter; perhaps they didn’t try it more than once. But actually everyone was safer than in fine weather, for in the convoy even the reckless drivers had to go slowly and the high snow-walls on either side made it impossible for anyone to drive off the road. All you could do was merely to follow the car ahead of you, and after a while you came through and the convoy was broken up. Beyond the ends of the convoy the road was still bad, but it was two lanes wide in most places.

About three o’clock the situation began to improve. The wind fell off a little, and besides, by this time the wind had already blown into the road most of the loose snow which lay readily at hand to windward. Also at this time the Superintendent was able to have three rotaries converge on the worst stretch of road.

First he ordered the convoy cut down to three miles, and then to two. Finally, at four-thirty he stopped convoying altogether, and gave orders to the gate-keepers to let the trucks with trailers start coming through. There was still a chance that one of these might jack-knife and block the road, but the Superintendent liked to feel that the road was entirely open.

By five o’clock he was sure that things were in hand. More snow was falling again, but the wind had eased off considerably and was shifting back into the south. It had been a close call, but he hadn’t exactly lost the road, even though convoying was the next thing to it. If he had to close the gates for a while after midnight to get a chance to clean the road up, that hardly counted either, for during those hours there was scarcely any traffic. And tomorrow would be another day, most likely with an entirely different problem.

12

From every river and creek in the great horseshoe of mountains about the Sacramento Valley the water was pouring out. Foot by foot the level rose at the gauges.

From the lowest parts of the by-pass lands men herded out the cattle and the sheep, and drove them to pastures a little higher, close to the levees which formed the boundaries of the by-passes. The steers sloshed through the soppy ground, bawling now and then. The ewes were draggled and heavy with rain. The lambs trotted uncertainly, stopping and starting; they bleated nervously.