Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-31

rection of the caboose. the desolation of night
had fallen, but its red light cleaned cheeriy.
we were watching them rather enviousy, when
as If in answer to the inspectors challenge a
pun OF white dust appeared far up the noun
tam side. With it muffed sound, in
creaslng, treblng, quadrupling, laundering. The
aValanehe! Almost one voice gave the
cry The inspector had reached the caboose
steps, but even before he could turn to look Gu
rlously up the slope, the white death had old
666 in her grasp. We never gathered up the
kindlings, for it took all our time for day tel
dig out the trucks. Under one of them we four4M
Inspector D. The mountain had called his
bluff. He will long be missed the road.
As the brakeman finished his story, the train
crept out from the narrow canon roadway, shad-
owed even on the brightest day, into charming
little valley. Emerald green meadow land
stretched from the river banks and climbed far
up the gentle mountain slopes The sun turned
the water ripples to silver and Light wind
swayed the heads of the red lilies and yellow
daisies that Haunted in the grasses.
"All that this needs is a chalet or two and a
couple of cows" l exclaimed. "It is an ideal
place for Swiss village"
''There used to be town here" the brake
man answered "This is Rogers Pass. Did you
never hear of it?"
When 1 had confessed my ignorance, he told
the story. 1.-TWO years ago there hamlet
here. eight or ten houses 1T was started in con-
struction days and fingered after the other
construction camps had disappeared. 1T was the
end of a division, so a track inspector lived
there, the families of some track members, an old
trapper, and one or two emigrants who had got
ten that far west and somehow stuck. 1t was
q prettier spot then than now. They had little
gardens along the riverbank, and some cowsl
grazed up the gulch. That was the gulch thatl
did the mischief. They thought it was too farI
away to threaten, and do you think to-day.
No one knows when or how it managed to do il, !
e La 1a1 H.
avalanche may have come at night and snatched
them from sleep into enternlty, or 1T may have
come in daylight, and tortured its victims by a
terrible and sudden fear, before death put
end to their horror. All we trainmen know is
that we came along after three-day storm and
could not recognize the valley. There was left
not house, not sign of human existence.
cannot see the valley in summer time with
out recalling our feelings on that winter morning
when overhead the shown in clear blue
sky, and below the unbroken white of the
snow-and silence"
Uncle Billy was the hero of another winters
tale, although he utterly dsclaimed the idea
that he had done anything out of the way.
eve fellows always stand by each other, he
! said half-apoogetcaly, cts the only thing TO
do when Nature is so dead against you We
were digging out freight in a cut Just this
side of Glacier. and it was the DEVILS own work.
too, with the wind blowing the icy seet in your
face and your hands so numb you almost dr6fes
ped the shovel 1t was Christmas Eve, too
which made it all the harder. But the whole
road was blocked, 80 there nothing for it
but for everybody to work night and day, on
shifts till the way was clear. But when Jimmy
McManus came out to take my place at the end
of the shift, saw he was not fit to do it.
He had a cough that about knocked him over,
every time it struck him. It's pneumonia you'll
be having if you come out here, Jimmy, my boy
said You go back to the caboose and will
take your shift Some of the others spoke up
TO take their share Jimmy too sick to
argue much, so back he goes.
"IIe had wife, poor fellow. I've often been
wondering since whether she does not most hate
me for making him go back. Yet certainly
thought was doing it for the best certainly
did But you see it was the avalanche. Within
half an hour of the boys going back to the ca
boose the white death struck it. There were two
Others there. We dug them all out by morning,
and one of them was alive. But Jimmy was ter
ribly crushed-he must have been killed instant
| ly II was a sad Christmas present we had to
take back to his little wife"
Uncle Billy is full Of sympathy for his fellows
who were the victims of the white DEATH but to
the dangers that beset his own path, he seems
never TO give a thought. "lts all in the day'
work." he said cheerfully, "and there is no use
bothering your head about il until it comes"
A very helpful creed this seemed TO be, to the
Canadian tranmen for it enables them to do
their duty cheerfuly, and to face their daily
perils with a smile.