“O.K. Roll! In a storm like this we’ve got to get French Bar going before something goes out somewhere else.” The L. D. hung up, and noted the time as 9:21.

•

In the garage Martley turned to the four men of the gang. Three of them were making jokes at the last comer about his late arrival and (imagined) bleary-eyed appearance—jokes about marital activities which must have been current before Agamemnon. Muffled and gauntleted, the men were almost as well sealed against the weather as if they had been deep-sea divers. They were heavy and burly, for on transmission lines the work demanded more than a mere pole-monkey.

At Martley’s word two of them mounted to the truck-seat, and the two others crawled in at the rear among the tools, coils of wire, grounds, insulators, jugs of drinking water, and skis.

“Why don’t lines ever fall in nice weather?” said one of them, joking by ancient formula.

The engine roared. The windshield-wipers started. Martley rolled up the door, and a blast of snow-laden wind whirled blindingly into the garage. With chains slapping on the concrete floor, the truck moved out.

The truck had heavy going to get away from the power-house. Twice it stalled in drifts, and had to be backed up for another try. But on the highway the snow-plows had already cleared the way. For a mile the transmission line was close to the road; then the gang had to leave the truck and take to the snow. They parked by one of the U.S. 40 signs. They were close to the three-thousand foot level, and the snow was much too wet for webs; it would be bad going even for skis. In the lee of the truck, still joking, they got their skis on and loaded themselves.

They worked along the hillside in single file. Although each of them used skis constantly all winter, they plodded heavily and awkwardly. A man weighted down with fifty or sixty pounds of miscellaneous, hastily packed material cannot dash down hills and execute perfect Christianas. Already snow coated them; it clung to their eye-brows; it built up weight upon the tools and coils of wire which they carried. Each man bent himself to meet the wind’s force, and plugged steadily on. They followed the pole line, and each pole—as they won up even and then passed it—marked a definite progress. Once they stopped to breathe themselves. They shook off some of the weight of snow, and puffed luxuriously. In the sweep of the storm no one tried to light a cigarette.

“Let’s go, boys,” said the foreman. “The L. D. will be callin’ in a few minutes, wantin’ to know where the hell we are.”