At five o'clock that evening, snow was falling at Medicine Bend, but

Callahan, as he studied the weather bulletins, found consolation in the

fact that it was not raining, and resting his heels on a table littered

with train-sheets he forced the draft on a shabby brier and meditated.

There were times when snow had been received with strong words at the

Wickiup: but when summer fairly opened Callahan preferred snow to rain

as strongly as he preferred genuine Lone Jack to the spurious compounds

that flooded the Western market.

The chief element of speculation in his evening reflections was as to

what was going on west of the range, for Callahan knew through cloudy

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experience that what happens on one side of a mountain chain is no

evidence as to what is doing on the other--and by species of warm

weather depravity that night something was happening west of the range.

"It is curious," mused Callahan, as Morrison, the head operator, handed

him some McCloud messages--"curious, that we get nothing from Sleepy

Cat."

Sleepy Cat, it should be explained, is a new town on the West End; not

only that, but a division town, and though one may know something about

the Mountain Division he may yet be puzzled at Callahan's mention of

Sleepy Cat. When gold was found in the Pilot range and camps grew up

and down Devil's Gap like mushrooms, a branch was run from Sleepy Cat

through the Pilot country, and the tortoise-like way station became at

once a place of importance. It takes its name from the neighboring

mountain around the base of which winds the swift Rat River. At Sleepy

Cat town the main line leaves the Rat, and if a tenderfoot brakeman ask

a reservation buck why the mountain is called Sleepy Cat the Indian

will answer, always the same, "It lets the Rat run away."

"Now it's possible," suggested Hughie Morrison, looking vaguely at the

stove, "that the wires are down."

"Nonsense," objected Callahan.

"It is raining at Soda Sink," persisted Morrison, mildly.

"What?" demanded the general superintendent, pulling his pipe from his

mouth. Hughie Morrison kept cool. His straight, black hair lay

boyishly smooth across his brow. There was no guile in his expression

even though he had stunned Callahan, which was precisely what he had

intended. "It is raining at Soda Sink," he repeated.

Now there is no day in the mountains that goes back of the awful

tradition concerning rain at Soda Sink. Before Tom Porter, first

manager; before Brodie, who built the bridges; before Sikes, longest in

the cab; before Pat Francis, oldest of conductors, runs that tradition

about rain at the Sink--which is desert absolute--where it never does

rain and never should. When it rains at Soda Sink, this say the

Medicine men, the Cat will fall on the Rat. It is Indian talk as old

as the foothills.




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