So we come, in less than a century, from the death-dogged snow-shoers of the Donner Party to the carefree week-end skiers dotting the mountain-sides with bright costumes. Above the place where little Stanton sat to smoke his last pipe, Cisco beacon flashes out to Donner beacon. Where John Denton, plucky Yorkshireman, waited in the snow for death, the streamlined trains slide by. And over that camp where the poor emigrants ate the forbidden meat, the pilots of the wide-winged planes follow the whining Reno beam to Blue Canyon, where—turning—they set their last course for the airports of the Bay.

6

Like Casey Jones, the Road Superintendent kissed his wife and started out for the day’s work. He was not a railroad man, and the hour was not half-past four. Nevertheless, the comparison is sound; for about the Superintendent and his job gathered something of that matter-of-fact heroism which makes the song of Casey Jones the epic of the American working-man.

He drove slowly along the highway; he was inspecting, not traveling. CALIFORNIA—U.S. 40 stared at him from the neat shield-shaped markers. He passed between the slender bright-orange snow-stakes standing at hundred-foot intervals on both sides of the highway. He saw a stake leaning over, and got out to straighten it. A car with a Minnesota license slowed down beside him.

“What those stakes for, brother?” called an abrupt voice.

“Snow-stakes,” said the Superintendent, but the face into which he looked was blank. “You see, when there’s snow—deep—the snow-plows have to steer by these stakes.”

“Say—you kidding us, brother. It’s January—where’s your snow? Why we had fifteen inches in one storm the other day. You telling us about snow?”

The car started forward suddenly, but the Superintendent heard a woman’s voice trail back from it.

“Those things must be eight feet high. Just like California!”

He drove on, a little disgruntled. People from northern states always made trouble—thought they knew everything about driving in snow. He’d like to see that crowd now, getting around Windy Point on a bad day. Fifteen inches of snow—why, man, on Donner Pass you figure snow by feet, not inches!

Well, that was MINNESOTA anyway. CALIFORNIA and NEVADA didn’t count. He got NEW YORK, and ILLINOIS before reaching the Lake Tahoe turn-off. Noting “foreign” licenses was an unbreakable habit of no practical importance; it was perhaps a sign of his pride in the great highway which he served. UTAH, OREGON. A big gasoline truck thundered by; its trailing chain struck sparks. Then went a towering van with a trailer; half a dozen special licenses spattered its rear-end. A streamlined transcontinental bus speeded toward him. A big truck passed, laden with bulging sacks; “Idaho potatoes, or onions,” he thought. PENNSYLVANIA, NEBRASKA. Yessir, he’d bet, considering how high it went, U.S. 40 carried more traffic than any other road in the world. And he was the one who saw that it got through, summer or winter. ALBERTA, MISSOURI.