he
former moving-picture actor, warningly. "If we are going to pull this
stunt off you are going to keep perfectly sober. It's one drink and no
more!"

"But I'm goin' to git a flask to take along," pleaded the man.

"You can do that. But I give you fair warning that you've got to go
slow in using the stuff. Otherwise we are going to part company. In
such a game as we are trying to put over, a man has got to have his
wits about him."

Having procured a drink, and also a package of cigarettes and a flask
of liquor, the two set off through the storm for the railroad station,
a mile and a quarter away. It was a hard and tiresome journey, and
more than once they had to stop to rest and figure out where they
were. Twice Tim Crapsey insisted upon it that he must have a "bracer"
from the flask.

"I'm froze through and through," he declared.

"Well, I'm half frozen myself," retorted Ward Porton, and when he saw
the man drinking he could not resist the temptation to take some of
the liquor himself.

"We'll be in a fine pickle if we get to Pepsico and then find that the
train isn't coming through," remarked the former moving-picture actor,
when about three-quarters of the journey had been covered and they
were resting in the shelter of a roadside barn.

"That's a chance we've got to take," returned his companion. "But I
don't think the train will be stormbound. Most of the tracks through
here are on an embankment, and the wind would keep them pretty
clear."

It was after one o'clock when the pair finally gained the little
railroad station at Pepsico. They found over a dozen men and several
women present, all resting in the tiny waiting-room, trusting that the
train would soon put in an appearance.

"The wires are down so they can't tell exactly where the train is,"
said one of the men, in reply to a question from Porton. "They are
hoping, though, that it isn't many miles away."

From time to time one of the would-be passengers would go out on the
tracks to look and listen, and at last one of these announced that a
train was on the way.

"But I can't tell whether it's a passenger train or a freight," he
said.

"Let's git on it even if it's a freight," said Tim Crapsey to Ward
Porton. "She'll take us to Crumville jest as well."

"All right, provided we can get aboard."

Slowly the train puffed in and proved to be a freight. On the rear,
however, was a passenger car, hooked on at the last station.

[Illustration