No large amounts of snow bothered them on the short trip to the Yankee Boy Mine tipple. Billy spotted the tender under a coal chute where they found more than enough coal to fill the tender, and soon, Billy whistled off and they headed up the main on their rescue mission. Every man on board that little Baldwin knew that anything can and will happen of a railroad, and they were all hoping no one had been injured, or worse, on Extra 29 North.
Snow was falling more heavily as they started out. Three miles upgrade, they encountered snow drifts which nearly reached the top of the pilot plow, but the snow was fresh and powdery and the little Baldwin kicked it off the track will little trouble. Billy was careful to raise the Priest flanger below the pilot when approaching a switch or grade crossing, lest the engine derail and tear up some track.
They'd gone nearly ten miles and were high on the side of the mountain on a nearly four per cent grade. As they nosed around a sharp, left hand curve Lake, who was leaning out of the fireman's side gangway shouted, "Stop, there's a flagman on the track!" As Billy dumped the air and slammed the throttle shut, the two torpedos on the track went off with two very loud bangs. They stopped quickly, and the rear end brakeman from Extra 29 North, a man known only as "the German", slogged through the snow and pulled himself into the cab.
"Mein Gott, I'm glad to see you guys," he said with a thick accent. "Ve stalled in a drift, und ven ve backed out der damn hack vent offen der track. Dere vas no vay we could pull up to rerail der damn t'ing. Ve been here for several hours and it's gettin' colder all the time."
