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Looking through the car window, I observed that we were passing through a wooden framework in fact a snow-shed, the roof sloping from the mountain-side, to carry safely over the track the snow and rocky débris which shoot down from above. I find there are miles upon miles of these snow-sheds along our route. At the Summit we pass through the longest, which is 1700 feet in length.
Around the dome and well up toward the summit of the main peak, the snow-shed was well marked with tracks of the mule deer and the pretty stitching and embroidery of field mice, squirrels, and grouse; and on the way back to camp I came across a strange track, somewhat like that of a small bear, but more spreading at the toes. It proved to be that of a wolverine.
Mitchell and Major Elliott walked to Sherman and an old man drove them back at dusk with two ponies. The train had moved up to Dale creek bridge and drawn into a long snow-shed. Here, we remained all night and, with the rarified air and the smoke from the engine, were almost suffocated, while the wind blew so furiously we could not venture to open the doors. January 3.
That is where the road is on a level, with perhaps an opening amidst the rolling hills on one side or the other; but when we pass through a cutting we are protected by a snow-shed, usually built of boards supported on poles. At Laramie City, we stop for breakfast. The name of "City" is given to several little collections of houses along the line.
Jay Gould, who then controlled the Union Pacific, Edison was allowed to ride on the cow-catchers of the locomotives. "The different engineers gave me a small cushion, and every day I rode in this manner, from Omaha to the Sacramento Valley, except through the snow-shed on the summit of the Sierras, without dust or anything else to obstruct the view.
At nightfall, when the work of clearing away the first mass of debris was not yet completed, a third slide swept down seven laborers and demolished a snow-shed. The unfortunate train that had been delayed so long in the Rockies was indefinitely stalled. The situation was unprecedented.
When the last car dipped into the mouth of the snow-shed he was still standing there, gazing after, his hat in hand, a straight, lithe figure against the starlit sky. Well down in the southeastern corner of New Hampshire, some twenty miles inland from the sea, lies Eden Village. Whether the first settlers added the word Village to differentiate it from the garden of the same name I can't say.
East of the summit is a succession of short tunnels, the space between being covered with snow-shed; and when I came through, the openings and crevices through which the smoke from the engines is wont to make its escape, and through which a few rays of light penetrate the gloomy interior, are blocked up with snow, so that it is both dark and smoky; and groping one's way with a bicycle over the rough surface is anything but pleasant going.
Massy boulders charged down the slopes and smashed the half-finished snow-shed framing into splinters; but, rod by rod, the line stretched on, and the surveyor's good-will increased toward us.
His hand reached over the railing and one of hers fell into it. For a moment it lay hidden there, warm and tremulous. Then his fingers released it and it fled to join its fellow at her breast. "Good night dear," he said again. "Remember!" Then he dropped from the step. There was a long piercing wail of the whistle that was smothered as the engine entered the snow-shed.
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