CHAPTER XIII
AN ALARM
Mr. Richard Gordon was not minded to allow the young folks to portion outthe little store of food as they pleased. He and Major Pater, who had nowjoined the party from Fairfields quite as a matter of course, hadconsidered the use of the supplies to the best advantage. There was notmuch else to eat on the train, for even the crew had devoured theirlunches, and most trainmen when obliged to carry food at all are suppliedwith huge tin buckets that hold at least three "square meals."
"Though why meals should be 'square' I can't for the life of me see,"Betty observed. "Why not 'round' meals? I am sure we manage to get aroundthem when we eat them."
"Quite a philosopheress, aren't you?" joked Bob.
"These rations are not to be considered with philosophy," complainedBobby. "They are too frugal."
In truth, when the bread and meat and crackers and hot drink had beenportioned to those needed food most, the amount each received was nothingto gorge upon.
"If it stops snowing--or as soon as it does," Bob declared, "we've got toget out and make our way back to that station the brakeman says is onlythree miles away."
"Uncle Dick won't let us try it, I am sure," sighed Betty. "How could wewade through such deep snow?"
"If you had helped dig that tunnel," said Teddy Tucker confidently, "you'dknow that the snow is packed so hard you wouldn't sink in very deep inwalking."
"But of course, you girls can't go," Tommy said. "We fellows will have togo for supplies."
The girls did not much like this statement. Betty and Bobby at leastconsidered that they were quite as well able to endure the hardships of atramp through the snow as the boys.
"I'd just like to see that tunnel, and see how hard it is snowingoutside," said Betty privately to her chum.
"Let's go look," exclaimed Bobby, equally curious.
Libbie and Timothy had their heads together over a book. Louise and theboys were engaged socially with some of the other passengers in theircoach. So Betty and Bobby were able to slip away, with their coats andcaps, without being observed.
There were two Pullman coaches and but one day coach besides the expressand baggage and mail cars to the train. The passengers in the day coachwere confined to that or to the smoker's end of the baggage car ahead. Theoccupants of the Pullman coaches could roam through both as they pleased;and had the weather been fine it is certain that the young folks fromFairfields would have occupied the observation platform at the rear of thetrain a good part of the daytime.
They had been shut in by the storm the afternoon before, and now they weredoubly shut in by the snow. The doors of the vestibules between the carscould not be opened, for the snow was banked up on both sides to theroofs. That tunnel the boys and train hands had made from the rearplatform was the only means of egress for the passengers from thesubmerged train.
Betty and Bobby passed through the rear car and out upon the snow-bankedplatform. They saw that several people must have thrust themselves throughthe tunnel since the boys had made it. Probably these explorers hadwished, like the two girls, to discover for themselves just what state theweather was in.
"Dear me!" gasped Bobby, "dare we poke through that hole? What do youthink, Betty?"
"The snow is hard packed, just as the boys say. I guess we can risk it,"declared the more daring Betty. "Anyway, I can go anywhere Bob Hendersoncan, my dear. I will not take a back seat for any boy."
"Hear! Hear!" chuckled Bobby. "Isn't that what they cry at politicalmeetings? You have made a good speech, Bettykins. Now go ahead and do it."
"Go ahead and do what?"
"Lead the way through that chimney. My! I believe it has stopped snowingand the boys don't know it."
"Come on then and make sure," Betty cried, and began to scramble up thesloping tunnel on hands and knees.
Both girls were warmly dressed, booted, and mittened. A little snow wouldnot hurt them--not even a great deal of snow. And that a great deal hadfallen and blown into this railroad cut, Betty and Bobby soon realizedwhen they had scrambled out through what the latter had called "thechimney."
Only a few big flakes drifted in the air, which was keen and biting. Butthe wind had ceased--at least, it did not blow here in the cut between thehills--and it seemed only an ordinary winter day to the two girls from theother side of the Potomac.
Forward they saw a thin stream of smoke rising into the air from the stackof the front locomotive. The fires in the pusher were banked. It was notan oil-burner, nor was it anywhere near as large a locomotive as the onethat pulled the train.
Rearward they could scarcely mark the roadbed, so drifted over was it.Fences and other landmarks were completely buried. The bending telegraphpoles, weighted by the pull of snow-laden wires, was all that marked theright of way through the glen.
"What a sight!" gasped Betty. "Oh, Bobby! did you ever see anything soglorious?"
"I never saw so much snow, if that is what you mean," admitted theVirginia girl. "And I am not sure that I really approve of it."
But Bobby laughed. She had to admit it was a great sight. It was nowmid-afternoon and all they could see of the sun was a round, hazy ballbehind the misty clouds, well down toward the western horizon which theycould see through the mouth of this cut, or valley between the hills. Atfirst they beheld not a moving object on the white waste.
"It is almost solemn," pursued Betty, who possessed a keen delight in allmanifestations of nature.
"It looks mighty solemn, I admit," agreed Bobby. "Especially when youremember that anything to eat is three miles away and the drifts arenobody knows how many feet deep."
Betty laughed. She was about to say something cheerful in reply when asudden sound smote upon their ears--a sound that startled the two girls.Somewhere from over the verge of the high bank of the cut on their lefthand sounded a long-drawn and perfectly blood-curdling howl!
"For goodness' sake!" gasped Bobby, grabbing her friend by the arm. "Whatsort of creature is that? Hear it?"
"Of course I hear it," replied Betty, rather sharply. "Do you think I amdeaf?"
Only a very deaf person could have missed hearing that mournful howl. Itdrew nearer.
"Is it a dog?" asked Bobby, almost in a whisper, as for a third time thehowl sounded.
"A dog barks, doesn't it? That doesn't sound like a dog, Bobby," saidBetty. "I heard one out West. I do believe it is one!"
"One what?" cried Bobby, almost shaking her in alarm and impatience.
"A wolf. It sounds just like a wolf. Oh, Bobby! suppose there should be apack of wolves in these hills and that they should attack this train?"
"Wolves!" shrieked Bobby. "_Wolves_! Then me for in-doors! I am not goingto stay here and be eaten up by wolves."
As she turned to dive into the tunnel there was a sharper and more eageryelp, and a shaggy animal came to the edge of the bluff to their left and,without stopping an instant, plunged down through the drifts toward thetwo girls where they stood on the hard-packed snow at the mouth of thetunnel.
"It is a wolf!" wailed Bobby, and immediately disappeared, head first,down the hole in the snow drift.