During the first week of tramping he thoroughly learned the lay of the land, the topography of his particular stretch of Sherman Pass.  And one day, taking an early start from camp, he set forth to make his first call upon his nearest associate in this work, the engineer Service.  Once high up on the pass he found the snow had not all melted, and still higher it lay white and unbroken as far as he could see.  The air was keener up there.  Neale gathered that Service would have a colder job than his own, if it was not so long and hard.

He found Service at home in his dugout, warm and comfortable and in excellent spirits.  They compared notes, and even in this early work they decided it would be a wise plan for the engineering staff to study the problem of drifting snow.

Neale enjoyed a meal with Service, and then, early in the afternoon, he started back on his long tramp homeward.  He gathered from his visit that Service did not mind the lonesomeness, but that he did suffer from the cold more than he had expected.  Service was not an active, full-blooded man, and Neale had some misgivings.  Judging from the trapper’s remarks, winter high up in the Wyoming hills was something to dread.

November brought the real storms—­the gray banks of rolling cloud, the rain and sleet and snow and ice, and the wind.  Neale concluded he had never before faced a real wind, and when, one day on a ridge-top, he was blown off his feet he was sure of it.  Some days he could not go out at all.  Other days it was not imperative, for it was only during and after snow-storms that he could make observations.  He learned to travel on snow-shoes, and ten miles of such traveling up and down the steep slopes was the most killing hard toil he had ever attempted.  After such trips he would reach the cabin utterly fagged out, too tired to eat, too weary, to talk, almost too dead to hear the solicitations of his friends or to appreciate Allie’s tender, anxious care.  If he had not been strong and robust and in good training to begin with, he would have failed under the burden.  Gradually he grew used to the strenuous toil, and became hardened, tough, and enduring.

Though Neale hated the cold and the wind, there were moments when an exceedingly keen exhilaration uplifted him.  These experiences visited him while on the heights, looking far over the snowy ridges to, the white, monotonous plain or up toward the shining peaks.  All seemed barren and cold.  He never saw a living creature or a track upon those slopes.  When the sun shone all was so dazzlingly, glaringly white that his eyes were struck by temporary blindness.

Upon one of the milder days, which were getting rarer in mid-December, Neale again visited his comrade on the summit.  He found Service in bad shape.  In falling down a slippery ledge he had injured or broken his lame leg.  Neale, with great concern, tried to ascertain the nature and extent of the harm done, but he was unable to do so.  Service was practically helpless, although not suffering any great pain.  The two of them decided, at length, that he had not broken any bones, but that it was necessary to move him to where he could be waited upon and treated, or else some one must be brought in to take care of him.  Neale deliberated a moment.