two o'clock
Christmas Day found McCloud at the front , with men still very scarce , but Mears 's gang at work and laying steel . The work train was in charge of Stevens , the freight conductor , who had been set back after the Smoky Creek wreck and was slowly climbing back to position . They were working in the usual way , with the flat cars ahead pushed by the engine , the caboose coupled to the tender being on the extreme hind end of the train . At two o'clock on Christmas afternoon , when there was not a cloud in the sky , the horizon thickened in the east . Within thirty minutes the mountains from end to end of the sky-line were lost in the sweep of a coming wind , and at three o'clock snow struck the valley like a pall . Mears , greatly disturbed , ordered the men off the grade and into the caboose . McCloud had been inspecting culverts ahead , and had started for the train when the snow drove across the valley .