and stamp mills was frozen early in the winter and the mines were
practically closed down. One or two, like the Mont d'Or, were kept open,
and worked a few hours a day, but no milling was done and the ore dumps
increased to vast size.

The railroad, a steep and tortuous way, was not, _per se_ a passenger
line, but existed to carry the ore down to the smelters, therefore, when
there was no ore to carry, it was a matter of indifference to the mine
owners who controlled the line whether trains ran or not; in fact, they
preferred not from a strictly business standpoint, and truly they had an
excellent excuse in the heavy drifts which completely obliterated the
narrow, shining, steel path which led to the world beyond the mountains.

The police officials whom Hanson consulted as soon as his returning
health permitted him to do so, realized that in spite of their anxiety
to secure the famous and slippery Crop-eared José, he was quite as
safely imprisoned by the mountains as if they themselves had secured
him. There was no possible escape for him. All trails were blocked long
before the railroad was, so there he was, caught as securely as a bird
in a cage, and they, his potential captors, might sit down to a
comfortable period of pleasant anticipation and await that thaw which
was bound to come sooner or later. So much for Gallito's unexpected.

As for those who would have been interested had they but known--the
little group held in compulsory inaction by those white, encircling
hills--they accepted it as a part of the year's toll, no more to be
murmured at than the changing seasons, and as inevitable as were they.
But it was an experience which Pearl had never known, and Seagreave
looked to see it wear upon her spirit, and daily experienced a new
surprise that there was no evidence of its doing so. Instead, she seemed