The White Desert | Page 7

ice in the gulleys of the road fairly shouted the fact as he edged
back once more from the radiator to his seat.
An hour--and three more after that--with the consequent stops and
pauses, the slow turns, the dragging process up the steeper inclines of
the road. A last final, clattering journey, and Barry leaped from the seat
with something akin to enthusiasm.
Through the swirling snow which sifted past the glare of his headlights,

he could discern a sign which told him he had reached the summit, that
he now stood at the literal top of the world.
But it was a silent world, a black world, in which the hills about him
were shapeless, dim hulks, where the wind whined, where the snow
swept against his face and drifted down the open space of his collar; a
world of coldness, of malice, of icy venom, where everything was a
threatening thing, and never a cheering aspect except the fact that the
grades had been accomplished, and that from now on he could progress
with the knowledge that his engine at least need labor no longer. But
the dangers! Barry knew that they had only begun. The descent would
be as steep as the climb he had just made. The progress must be slower,
if anything, and with the compression working as a brake. But it was at
least progress, and once more he started.
The engine clanked less now, the air seemed a bit warmer with the
down grade, and Barry, in spite of his fatigue, in spite of the
disappointment of a disabled car, felt at least the joy of having
conquered the thing which had sought to hold him back, the happiness
of having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of
knowing that he now was on the down trail. The grade lessened for a
few hundred feet, and the machine slowed. Houston pressed on the
clutch pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became
steeper again. Then he sought once more to shift into gear,--and
stopped short!
Those few moments of coasting had been enough. Overheated,
distended, the bearings had cooled too suddenly about the crank shaft
and frozen there with a tightness that neither the grinding pull of the
starter nor the heavy tug of the down grade could loosen. Once more
Barry Houston felt his heart sink in the realization of a newer, a greater
foreboding than ever. A frozen crank shaft meant that from now on the
gears would be useless. Fourteen miles of down grade faced him. If he
were to make them, it must be done with the aid of brakes alone. That
was dangerous!
He cupped his hands and called,--in the vain hope that the stories of
Hazard Pass and its loneliness might not be true, after all. But the only

answer was the churning of the bank-full stream a hundred yards away,
the thunder of the wind through the pines below, and the eerie echo of
his own voice coming back to him through the snows. Laboriously he
left the machine and climbed back to the summit, there to seek out the
little tent house he had seen far at one side and which he instinctively
knew to be the rest room and refreshment stand of the summer season.
But he found it, as he had feared he would find it, a deserted, cold,
napping thing, without a human, without a single comfort, or the
possibility of fire or warmth through the night. Summer, for Hazard
Pass, at least, still was a full month away. For a moment he shivered
within it, staring about its bleak interior by the aid of a flickering match.
Then he went outside again. It was only a shell, only a hope that could
not be realized. It would be less of a hardship to make the fight to reach
the bottom of the Pass than to attempt to spend the night in this flimsy
contraption. In travel there would be at least action, and Barry
clambered down the hill to his machine.
Again he started, the brake bands squeaking and protesting, the
machine sloughing dangerously as now and again its sheer weight
forced it forward at dangerous speeds until lesser levels could be
reached and the hold of the brake bands accomplish their purpose again.
Down and down, the miles slipping away with far greater speed than
even Barry realized, until at last--
He grasped desperately for the emergency brake and gripped tight upon
it, steering with one hand. For five minutes there had come the strong
odor of burning rubber; the strain had been too great, the foot-brake
linings were gone; everything depended upon the emergency now! And
almost with the first strain--
Careening, the car seemed to