Soon after the rails were laid across Marshall Pass, Colorado, where they
go over a height of twelve thousand feet above the sea, an old engineer
named Nelson Edwards was assigned to a train. He had travelled the road
with passengers behind him for a couple of months and met with no
accident, but one night as he set off for the divide he fancied that the
silence was deeper, the canon darker, and the air frostier than usual. A
defective rail and an unsafe bridge had been reported that morning, and
he began the long ascent with some misgivings. As he left the first line
of snow-sheds he heard a whistle echoing somewhere among the ice and
rocks, and at the same time the gong in his cab sounded and he applied
the brakes.