March, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
107 
The train stalled at Mile Twenty 
Destruction wrought by the flood 
Victor Gombard’s picturesque cabin 
and try to imagine that there were two 
— one emanating from the head-light of 
a locomotive — but only the wind and the 
rain were astir and the continued pelt- 
ing on the roof was conducive to slum- 
ber. Andy had already succumbed to 
the power of Morpheus, so we worked 
out a two-kour shift at watching and 
Walt took up his station by the tent door 
while the rest of us unrolled our beds 
and gave way to sleep. 
About midnight we were awakened by 
the cry “Here she comes, boys” and we 
came back to life with a jerk. Sure 
enough we could see a little light, bleared 
by the rain and mist, but a light, never- 
theless, creeping nearer and nearer and 
by the time we had our shoe-pacs on 
and our beds rolled up we could hear 
the engine puffing and snorting up the 
grade. 
Out we filed into the wet night, piled 
all our stuff by the track and Walt 
bravely waved his sputtering lantern. 
“Spot the coach,” yelled the conductor 
as the heavy train came to a stop in 
front of our tent and we climbed aboard 
at last. We stowed all our duffle in the 
freight car and distributed ourselves 
among the crowd of men that were hud- 
dled in the seats of the day-coach in 
attitudes that expressed sheer exhaus- 
tion. Slowly we crept along through the 
darkness — rumbling and swaying on the 
uneven track — the engineer evidently 
feeling his way along in a manner that 
denoted caution. A half-hour of this 
and the train slowly came to a standstill. 
“This is as far as I will take her to- 
night,” said the engineer, a burly Scotch- 
man of determined mind. “You can’t 
run a train on the water and I’ll be 
darned if I can sde any track.” So we 
waited patiently for the dawn — the 
lights in the coach went out and the 
rain beat against the windows in no 
uncertain manner. 
About six o’clock daylight was strong 
enough for us to see that we were in 
Ihe middle of a vast stretch of rushing 
water — the track and wheels of the train 
were entirely submerged and the water 
was gurgling about the cars in a way 
that bid fair to undermine us at any 
moment, so the engineer cautiously 
backed the train to higher ground. Wal- 
ter said we were close to Mile Seventeen 
where he had a cabin and suggested that 
we walk back there and see if we could 
rustle some breakfast. Accordingly we 
left the train and plowed through the 
mud and rain until we found a trail 
leading down from the railroad into a 
grove of cottonwood trees where stood 
the little cabin. 
A THIN wisp of smoke coming from 
the chimney told us that it was oc- 
cupied and presently we entered 
and found a man called Windy Wagner 
standing by the stove cooking breakfast, 
while two other fellows, Louis Bell and 
Victor Gombard, were just getting up. 
They welcomed us royally and Windy 
insisted on making a great stack of hot 
cakes which, with fried eggs and bacon, 
mush and coffee, made the most wonder- 
ful breakfast I have ever eaten. All 
the while Windy talked and laughed and 
made us feel as though he was having 
the greatest time of his life in cooking 
for us. It was the spirit of the true 
Alaskan, always ready to share what- 
ever they had, and to help whoever came 
along. While we were eating, Victor 
Gdmbard said he was going down to the 
lake to see if his boat was all right and 
he returned in a little while with the 
report that the train had backed up a 
couple of miles farther and that a big 
landslide had come down and covered 
the track many feet deep with rocks, 
trees and mud only a moment after the 
train had passed. 
He said he thought the whole moun- 
tain was giving away by the noise it 
made and had run all the way back to 
the cabin to warn us. After an hour 
or two we decided to look up our train 
again, so we ventured forth and walked 
up the track through torrents of rain, 
feeling our way over the sunken ties 
until we reached the point where the 
slide had occurred and then we faced a 
tough proposition — the great slide 
blocked our way completely and was of 
such a soft consistency that we could 
find little foothold and could only cross 
by jumping from rock to rock or pre- 
cariously walking on the fallen tree 
trunks. All the while wet earth was 
slipping on every side — new slides start- 
ing far above us which necessitated care- 
ful watching in order to keep from be- 
ing buried alive. Luck held true, how- 
ever, and we worked our way along over 
the huge mountain of debris to the com- 
paratively clear track beyond and finally 
reached the train in safety. 
T he engineer had backed it up al- 
most to Mile Twenty from which 
we had started so blithely the night 
before — and there it stood puffing quiet- 
ly, completely cut off by the landslide 
in one direction and a washed out bridge 
on the other. So we went back to Andy’s 
cabin again and dug a few more spuds 
for dinner. We found that the lake 
was still rising — Andy’s stake was al- 
most submerged and the water was lap- 
ping hungrily at the doorstep of the 
cabin. The lake itself was filled with 
immense pieces of drift-wood — great 
trees torn whole from forests far up 
in the mountains were whirling around 
and round in the maelstrom of conflict- 
ing currents that made the lake a vortex 
for a hundred streams — some of them 
rising far up in the region of eternal 
snow and fed by glaciers that the con- 
stant rain had losened. 
Pot-holes and ice-jams had given way 
on every mountainside and added a 
heavy burden to the swollen streams — a 
deluge of water that bid fair to swamp 
the entire country and the leaden skies 
showed no sign of let up. 
“Noah had nothing oij us,” said Ben, 
as he tied Andy’s canoe to the door latch 
of the cabin, “we may need you, old boy, 
before the night is over,” he added, with 
a whimsical grin. So we were back 
once more in our old quarters. Walt 
had gone to Howard Long’s cabin, about 
a mile away, to get a piece of bear meat 
and when he returned we had a cozy 
fire burning and the spuds were ready 
to eat. 
As we turned in that night we no- 
ticed a little water leaking in around the 
door-sill and the rain was beating 
against the windows with renewed fury. 
“It’s a good thing we are not on Kenai 
River now,” said Walter. “You’re damn 
right,” said Andy, as he pulled away 
on his pipe in quiet contemplation of 
our snug quarters. Walt blew out the 
light and we settled down to sleep. I 
shared Mackay’s bunk as it was farther 
off the floor than my bear rug and it 
somehow looked better to me. About 
one o’clock Mackay sat up in the bunk 
and struck a match along its side. 
“Well, I’m darned if we aren’t all 
afloat!” I heard him exclaim through 
the fog of sleep that still held me. Sure 
enough, the water was half up to our 
bunk and everything on the floor of the 
cabin that could float was bobbing 
around like torpedoed ships. Mackay 
reached over on the table and lit the 
lantern and at the same moment Walter 
came plowing through the water from 
the annex where he had been sleeping 
on some boxes and said it was “too damn 
damp” for him, Ben was standing on 
the edge of his bunk pulling on a pair 
of boots; Andy grunted from a pile of 
blankets on the far side of the bunk 
and wanted to know what all the disturb- 
ance was about, but when he compre- 
hended the situation he agreed with us all 
that the time had come to move. Accord- 
ingly we made a bridge of boxes to the 
stove and Walter got the fire going with. 
