“Yeh?— You talk as if I were the two-headed man or something. Why didn’t they speak to me? I like to see the boys. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen you, Johnny.”

“Hell, this system is so big you couldn’t meet everybody in it if that was your full-time job.”

“Well, O.K., Johnny. Just wanted to see how things were.”

But the L. D. was thinking he would really like to meet Johnny. It was crazy knowing so many people by telephone only. Johnny’s record was good, and the L. D. liked his slow-spoken manner, suggestive of reserve power.

•

Air-Lines depended principally upon its own meteorologists, and their forecast too was for rain. The Chief Service Officer called up the Commercial Department and told them that cancellation must be considered likely for all flights scheduled after two P.M. on Sunday, and purchasers of tickets should be so informed.

•

The Railroad considered its schedules inviolable, no matter what the weather. “There comes a time,” the white-haired General Manager liked to say, “when the buses are blocked and the planes can’t fly—but we go through just the same.” The Railroad had weathered so many storms that one more meant nothing further in the way of preparation. But as staff officers move to their posts before a battle, so the Assistant Divisional Engineer and the Chief Trainmaster went up by Number 77 out of Sacramento that morning and dropped off at Emigrant Gap and Norden to take charge of track-clearance.

•

The District Traffic Superintendent always got a little nervous when a big storm was coming and he thought of all his long-distance wires out there exposed to whatever hit. This morning he called Chicago, but Chicago had the news already of course, and there was nothing to talk about. Then, mostly out of nervousness, he called the Plant office. Plant said that they were sending some extra men up along U.S. 40 to be ready in case things went bad on the Pass.

6

The little green truck with the telephone insignia on its side hummed merrily up U.S. 40, past the two-thousand-foot elevation marker, and on. Inside, it gave a paradoxical impression of cluttered neatness, everywhere all kinds of diverse things lay ready at hand in a little space—coils of wire jostled spare insulators, and tools touched skis and snow-shoes.

Rick, driving the truck, was happy. He was going up to play what he knew was a man’s game, and in the next few days he would play it lone-handed. He liked the deep snow country on the Pass, and working on the Transcontinental Lead meant more than just mending local wires in some foothill town.