WOLF RIVER

A uniformed flagman, with his flag and a handful of torpedoes swung
from the platform and started up the track.

"What's the trouble up in front?" asked the girl as Endicott assisted
her to the ground.

"Cloud busted back in the mountains, an' washed out the trussle, an'
Second Seventy-six piled up in the river."

"Oh, a wreck?" she exclaimed. "Will we have time to go up and see it?"

"I'd say it's a wreck," grinned the trainman. "An' you've got all the
time you want. We're a-goin' to pull in on the sidin' an' let the
wrecker an' bridge crew at it. But even with 'em a-workin' from both
ends it'll be tomorrow sometime 'fore they c'n get them box cars drug
out an' a temp'ry trussle throw'd acrost."

"What town is this?"

"Town! Call it a town if you want to. It's Wolf River. It's a
shippin' point fer cattle, but it hain't no more a town 'n what the
crick's a river. The trussle that washed out crosses the crick just
above where it empties into Milk River. I've railroaded through here
goin' on three years an' I never seen no water in it to speak of
before, an' mostly it's plumb dry."

The man sauntered slowly up the track as one who performs a merely