110 Rod, Gun, and Palette in the High Roddies 



water, some distance south of Ray's pass (the crest of the divide), 

 the engineer pushed a couple of flat cars off the track on a side 

 switch. All freight and passenger business was promptly aban- 

 doned. The train crew turned itself into an impromptu wreck- 

 ing crew. For the next hour and a quarter, while passengers 

 yawned and queried, slept or talked, or played cards, as did 

 William and Art, all unmindful of mundane exigencies without 

 the warm, comfortable and smoky baggage car, the train crew 

 worked to restore the errant cars to their straight and narrow 

 way. 



Here's a helva clamor of iron upon iron as this is written, 

 made by the chains, bars, slip-ups and other wrecking apparatus, 

 being again loaded into the baggage car. Train hands in sleet 

 dripping waterproofs and hats clamber aboard, a welcome promise 

 of being again upon our way. They slap their gloves, they gather 

 about the stove, they stack their lanterns. Some one laughs. 

 Through the open baggage car door, over my left shoulder I see a 

 lantern swinging. The engine hoots — far off — for it is a long freight 

 train with the baggage and passenger coach at the end. We start 

 and everybody looks pleased and speaks cheerfully. 



Men gather at the baggage car door and vainly peer into 

 the pitchy depths of a sheer walled thousand foot cleft, along 

 whose brink the train runs for a number of miles, and whose 

 invisible river is faintly heard from the void above the rattle 

 of the train, recalling Kipling's Song of the Banjo. 



"Through the gorge that gives the stars at noonday clear; 

 Up the pass that packs the scud beneath the wheel. 

 Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer. 

 Down the valley with the guttering brakes a-squeal; 

 Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow, 

 And the many shedded levels loop and twine: 

 So I lead my reckless children from below 

 To sing the song of Roland to the pine 



IVith my tink-a-tink-a-tink-a-tink-a-link-a-tink-a-tink, 

 Till the ax has cleared the mountain, croup and crest; 

 And we ride the iron stallions down to drink 

 Through the canyons to the waters of the west. " 



It is ten-thirty-five. The train is fifteen miles from Ash ton. 

 In five hours it has come forty-five miles. If we do not strike 

 another car off the track we will be there a little before 



