“I can’t see what is keeping Bob,” she repeated, putting the camera down. “Maybe I’d better go back into the car. How those trees do swish about! I don’t believe if I shouted, I’d be heard above the noise of the wind and the train.”
This was an alluring thought, and Betty acted upon it, cautiously at first, and then, gaining confidence, more freely. It is exhilarating to contend with the rush of the wind, to pitch one’s voice against a torrent of sound, and Betty stood at the rail singing as loudly as she could, her tones lost completely in a grander chorus. Her cheeks crimsoned, and she fairly shouted, feeling to her finger tips the joy and excitement of the powerful forces with which she competed—those of old nature and man’s invention, the thing of smoke and fire and speed we call a train.
Suddenly the brakes went down, there was an uneasy screeching as they gripped the wheels, and the long train jarred to a standstill.
“How funny!” puzzled Betty. “There’s no station. We’re right out in the woods. Oh, I can hear the wind now—how it does howl!”
She picked up her belongings and made her way back to the car. As she passed through the coaches every one was asking the cause of the stop, and an immigrant woman caught hold of Betty as she went through a day coach.
“Is it wrong?” she asked nervously, and in halting English. “Must we get off here?”
“I don’t know what the matter is,” answered Betty, thankful that she was asked nothing more difficult. “But whatever happens, don’t get off; this isn’t a station, it is right in the woods. If you get off and lose some of your children, you’ll never get them together again and the train will go off and leave you. Don’t get off until the conductor tells you to.”
The woman sank back in her seat and called her children around her, evidently resolved to follow this advice to the last letter.
“She looks as if an earthquake wouldn’t blow her from her seat,” thought Betty, proceeding to her own car. “Well, at that, it’s safer for her than trying to find out what the matter is and not being able to find her way aboard again. I remember the conductor told Bob and me these poor immigrants have such trouble traveling. It must be awful to make your way in a strange country where you can not understand what people say to you.”
No Bob was to be seen when Betty reached her seat, but excited passengers were apparently trying to fall head-first from the car windows.