followed by a struggle to keep the equilibrium; an
undersized Canuck was seen to be running madly alongside with one hand
on the guard and endeavoring to get a foothold; he was hauled up
unceremoniously by a dozen hands. The crowd watching them, cheered and
jeered:

"Goin' it some, Antoine! Don't get left!"

"Keep on your pins, you Dagos!"

"Steady, Polacks--there's the strap!"

"Gee up, Johnny!" This to the motorman.

"Gosh, it's like a soda bottle fizzin' to hear them Rooshians talkin'."

"Hooray for you!"

The cars were off swiftly now; the men on the platforms waved their
hats, their white teeth flashing, their gold earrings twinkling, and
echoed the American cheer:--

"Horray!"

The station master turned away laughing.

"They look like a tough crowd, but they're O. K. in the end," he said to
the man beside him who was looking after the vanishing car and its
trailer. "There's yours coming down the switch. That'll take you up to
Flamsted and the sheds." He pushed the loaded truck up the platform.

The stranger entered the car and took a seat at the rear; there were no
other passengers. He told the conductor to leave him as near as possible
to the sheds.

"Guess you don't know these parts?" The conductor put the question.

"This here is new to me," the man answered; he seemed nothing loath to
enter into conversation. "When was this road built?"

"'Bout five years ago. You'll see what a roadway they've made clear
along the north shore of the lake; it's bein' built up with houses just
as fast as it's taken up."

He rang the starting bell. The car gathered headway and sped noisily
along the frozen road-bed. In a few minutes it stopped at the Flamsted
station; then it followed the shore of the lake for two miles until it
reached the sheds. It stopped here and the man got out.

"Can you tell me where the manager's office is?" he asked a workman who
was passing.

"Over there." He pointed with his thumb backwards across some railroad
tracks and through a stone-yard to a small two-storey office building at
the end of three huge sheds.

The man made his way across to them. Once he stopped to look at the
leaden waters of the lake, rimmed with ice; and up at the leaden sky
that seemed to be shutting down close upon them like a lid; and around
at the gray waste of frozen ground, the meadows covered lightly with
snow and pools of surface ice that here and there showed the long
bleached grass pricking throu