and I was yet unable to attend to my needs, a
sweet-faced lady looked after my wants and gave me my medicine. She was
the foreman's wife, and her ever cheering words with never a sign of
weariness that I, a sick and penniless harvester, should have so
unexpectedly become a charge upon her hands, were most grateful to me.

I made inquiries among the laborers and ascertained from their answers
that I was being cared for at the very section house that Peoria Red and
I had striven to reach during the howling blizzard. I tried to find out
what had become of my partner, but somehow they evaded my questions and
it was many days before I managed by slow degrees to learn from them the
facts concerning his absence.

During the height of the blizzard the foreman had ordered his crew out
and upon their hand car driven at a lively rate by the power of the wind
they had inspected every switch and car standing on sidings upon their
section, to assure themselves that everything was properly safeguarded.
While they were slowly "pumping" the hand car homeward, fighting against
the force of the raging snow storm, they discovered us lying closely
cuddled together, all but buried in the snow and beginning the eternal
sleep of death. They stopped, and finding that we were yet faintly
breathing, they loaded us upon the hand car and brought us to the
section reservation.

Here by every means known to them they tried to revive the flickering
sparks of life left in our frozen bodies. In my case they were
successful, but Peoria Red, poor fellow, failed to respond to their
heroic efforts. The following day they buried him on a slight elevation,
diagonally across the track from the bunk house, where, whenever I
looked in that direction, I could plainly discern the white board cross
that the whole-souled laborers had erected to mark his grave.

The section foreman's name was Henry McDonald. He was a kind-hearted, yet
stern man who demanded utmost obedience of those whom he commanded,
while at the same time he was a loving father to his family. Foreman
McDonald had none but the friendliest of greetings for me and he spent
many moments at the bunk house trying to cheer me in my hard luck.
Whenever I felt ill at ease for having added such a heavy burden to his
small income, his quaint answer would always be: "Joe, what little we
can do for you we would cheerfully do for any human being in distress.
We do not ask for your excuses, as I feel that the