us from our slumbers, and while we rubbed the drowsiness out of our eyes
we heard Foreman McDonald calling to us to make haste, as a wrecking
train was waiting to take us up the line to clear away a bad wreck.

It took little time for us to slip into our clothes, rush to the tool
house and throw our track implements aboard the wrecker, and then climb
into the coaches provided for our accommodation, in which were other
section crews who had been picked up below us, and into which were
loaded those for whom we stopped west of our reservation.

We had the right-of-track over every other train upon the line, and with
six powerful engines pushing a snow-plow at full speed ahead of us, we
reached our destination in almost record time, where we were put to work
clearing away a serious wreck, which had been caused by a heavy
passenger train running into a snow drift during a blinding blizzard,
and having at the same time been derailed from the tender back to the
rear truck beneath the last sleeper. For three days and nights we worked
like beavers, taking turns in eight hour shifts, sleeping and dining in
the "bunk" cars attached to the wrecking train, shoveling away the
solidly packed snow, "jacking" up the coaches, one at a time, and
replacing the trucks upon the rails, and in the afternoon of the third
day our combined efforts were rewarded, for amid the gladsome whistling
of its engine the released train resumed its interrupted, eastbound
journey.

We laborers were detained an additional day removing the wreckage,
reloading the apparatus used and putting everything into a first-class
condition for the resumption of the regular schedule. Then we boarded
the wrecker to be distributed along the line.