he
snow by now and there was an open passage to the outside world. The keen
kind blew in, and the pale, wintry sunshine lighted the space between the
baggage cars. Mr. Snubbins grinned in his friendly way at the two girls.

"I reckon you gals," he said, "would just like to be over to my house
where my woman could fry you a mess of flap-jacks. How's that?"

"Oh, don't mention it!" groaned Bess.

"Is your house near?" asked Nan.

"Peleg's the nighest. 'Tain't so fur. And when ye git out on top o' the
snow, the top's purty hard. It blew so toward the end of that blizzard
that the drifts air packed good."

"Yet you broke through," Bess said.

"Right here, I did, for a fac'" chuckled the farmer. "But it's warm down
here and it made the snow soft."

"Of course!" cried Nan Sherwood. "The stale air from the cars would
naturally make the roof of the tunnel soft."

"My goodness! Can't you see the train at all from up there?" Bess
demanded. "Is it all covered up?"

"I reckon the ingin's out o' the snow. She's steamin' and of course she'd
melt the snow about her boiler and stack," the farmer said. "But I didn't
look that way."

"Say!" demanded Bess, with some eagerness. "Is that Peleg's house near?"

"Peleg Morton? Why, 'tain't much farther than ye kin hear a pig's
whisper," said Mr. Snubbins. "I'm goin' right there, myself. My woman
wants ter know is Celia all right. She's some worrited, 'cause Celia
went over to visit Peleg's gal airly yesterday mornin' an' we ain't seen
Celia since."

Mr. Carter came back with one of the brakemen just then, bearing a can of
milk. The kindly conductor had found a tin plate, too--a section of the
fireman's dinner kettle--and into this he poured some of the milk for the
hungry little spaniel.

"There you are, Buster," he said, patting the dog, beside which Nan knelt
to watch the process of consumption--for the puppy was so hungry that he
tried to get nose, ears and fore-paws right in the dish!

"You're awfully kind," Nan said to Mr. Carter. "Now the little fellow
will be all right."

"You better get him out of the way of that fat man," advised the
conductor. "He owns the dog, you know. Bulson, I mean. He's forward in
the other car, gourmandizing himself on a jar of condensed milk. I let
him have one can; but I'm going to hold the rest against emergency. Now
that the snow has stopped falling," he added cheerfully, as he passed on,
"they ought to get help to us pretty soon."

The