Angus McEwan paused to consider why he disliked this man so much. They were both from Scotland, albeit different parts of the country. Henderson was an east coast Church of Scotland minister, and McEwan was a west coast engineer. But there was little patriotic bonding between them, even though some such comfort would have been welcome in this distant, alien continent in which they both found themselves. It was Henderson’s stubborn and naïve allegiance to these base heathens that irritated McEwan so deeply. Any Christian man could see the Indians were not civilized beings, not fit to be treated as equals, and yet this ridiculous man treated them as though they were Lords.

To see a white man, a Scot, so humbled before savages, was disgusting to McEwan.

‘If we are to discuss legality, perhaps you would care to mention to your new flock that their forebears signed a treaty concerning this railroad and its building many decades ago. Mention that approximately ten minutes from now, when we kick their bloody behinds off the mountain.’

Henderson flushed slightly, giving new life to the broken purple veins the frost had drawn on his cheeks. McEwan often cursed to rile him. Not this time though. This time there was too much at stake.

‘I’m afraid I cannot allow you to do that, Mr McEwan.’

McEwan looked interested, and mildly excited.

‘And how do you propose to stop me?’

‘I will have words with the men. If they are for me, who will do your kicking of behinds?’

McEwan rose from the table and walked to the small pot-bellied stove at the back of the cabin. Turning his back to the minister, he knelt down, opened the door and threw in a log. Facing the wall, he spoke in a low voice.

‘You underestimate these men. They want this job finished as much as you and me. The weather is against you, Henderson.’

It was true. The blizzard that had been raging for over three weeks now, had cut off Siding Twenty-three from the world. No trains had been through since the snow built an impenetrable barrier at the top of Wolf Pass, and McEwan had been there when a futile attempt was made to break through with a snowplough on the engine, bearing witness that passage was now quite impossible.

But with or without communication, they would have to begin the initial blasting of this tunnelling operation immediately, or the whole project would be in jeopardy. But it was not the snow holding them back; it was a band of thirty-two Kinchuinick Indians, taking it in shifts to squat night and day on top of the very rock that had been drilled, ready to receive the dynamite.