"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.