Keeping at fifty an hour he drove a mile northward. Then, just as he passed over a rather high culvert, he saw sharply in the glare of his headlights some little obstruction at the edge of the pavement—a stick of wood with some dirt beside it. By quick automatic reaction he swerved to the left, felt his wheels skid, and straightened out.

But the film of sodden manure which had spread across the wet pavement was so slippery that the tires could get no grip. The car skidded off the road, rolled over twice, and landed on its top with a terrific crash. With a shudder as of a dying animal, the car—its four wheels in the air—vibrated for a moment, and then was still.

12

Snow had been falling for an hour or so, and two or three inches lay upon the upper reaches of Highway 40. Already the yellow tow-car from Truckee had had to pull out a coupé, stuck in the ditch at Windy Point. Right now, in front of the Maintenance Station, a car had stopped, and its driver was fumbling with jack and chains; he looked very uncomfortable, half-blinded by the swirling snow, with the white powder sifting in around the collar of his overcoat.

From the broad doorway of the Maintenance Station the Superintendent looked out upon the storm. He could estimate the rate of snowfall pretty accurately from the visibility; just now he could see a certain tamarack tree which was about a hundred yards away, and so he knew the storm to be of only ordinary winter intensity. About time, he decided, to order out the push-plows. The sound of a locomotive whistle came shrilly from the mountain-side, and as if it had been a signal the beacon began flashing from the rocky crag just above the pass.

Two men of the night shift were standing in the doorway, and the Superintendent heard them laugh shortly as the beacon came on. “A lot of good that’ll do tonight,” said one of them. “No plane’ll dare fly low enough to spot it.” Then they argued whether the transcontinental had stopped flying or whether they were merely flying so high that you didn’t hear the engines.

For luck the Superintendent himself took out the first plow. It trundled awkwardly from the Maintenance Station, its big chains chunking on the concrete floor. He swung it to the left down the westward slope, set the level of the plow-share, and was off.