When the man arrived at the foot of the sharp ascent where he was to be relieved, Banks was finishing the piece of trail he had blazed and mushed diagonally up the slope to a rocky cleaver that stretched like a causeway from the timber to firm snow, but he returned with time to spare between the departure of the packer and the appearance of his party, to open the unwieldy load; from this he discarded two bottles of claret and another of port, with their wrappings of straw, a steamer-rug, some tins of pate de foie gras and other sundries that made for weight, but which the capitalist had considered essential to the comfort and success of the expedition.  There still remained a well-stocked hamper, including thermos bottles of coffee and tea, and a second rug, which he rolled snugly in the oilskin cover and secured with shoulder-straps.  The eliminated articles, that he cached under a log, were not missed until luncheon, which was served on a high, spur below the summit while Banks was absent making a last reconnaissance, and Frederic blamed the packer.

The spur was flanked above by a craggy buttress and broke below to an abyss which was divided by a narrow, tongue-like ridge, and over this, on a lower level of the opposite peak, appeared the steep roofs of the mountain station at the entrance to Cascade tunnel, where, on the tracks outside the portal, stood the stalled train.  It seemed within speaking distance in that rare atmosphere, though several miles intervened.

After a while sounds of metal striking ice came from a point around the buttress; Banks was cutting steps.  Then, following a silence, he appeared.  But, on coming into the sunny westward exposure, he stopped, and with two fingers raised like a weather-vane, stood gazing down the canyon.  His eyes began to scintillate like chippings of blue glacier.

Involuntarily every one turned in that direction, and Frederic reached to take his field-glasses from the shelf of the buttress they had converted into a table.  But he saw nothing new to hold the attention except three or four gauzy streamers of smoke or vapor that floated in the lower gorge.

“Looks like a train starting up,” he commented, “but the Limited gets the right of way as soon as there’s a clear track.”

Banks dropped his hand and moved a few steps to take the glasses from Morganstein.  “You’re right,” he replied in his high, strained key.  “It ain’t any train moving; it’s the Chinook waking up.”  He focussed on the Oriental Limited, then slowly swept the peak that overtopped the cars.  “Likely they dasn’t back her into the tunnel,” he said.  “The bore is long enough to take in the whole bunch, but if a slide toppled off that shoulder, it would pen ’em in and cut off the air.  It looks better outside, my, yes.”

“Here is your coffee, Mr. Banks,” said Elizabeth, who had filled a cup from the thermos bottle, “and please take anything else you wish while I repack the basket.  We are all waiting, you see, to go on.”