CHAPTER XVI.
"TO THE GIRL I LOVE!"
Getting dressed, Lawrence negotiates with Buck Powers for another pie for breakfast.
That worthy informs him that "provisions has riz" during the night. "There ain't enough for another round," he says. "If you weren't the Cap I should charge you double."
"Then we shall all be hungry soon—unless relief comes?" asks Harry, as he briskly attacks a pork turn-over, for the crisp, snowy air produces a mountain appetite.
"All but her," remarks Buck. "She's fixed as I told you!"
Thinking he will see what chance there is of immediate relief from their present predicament, Lawrence lights a cigar, and steps off the train into a snow-drift. A hasty examination shows there is no chance of the train being moved, until it is shovelled out by hand, though he is pleased to note that the sun has come out, shining brightly, and the snow has ceased falling for the present.
A moment after, he gives an exclamation of delight, for the view is a very beautiful one.
To the south, standing out against the horizon, and looking much nearer than they are, stand the Uintah Mountains, dark blue at their base line with pine forests, and white with eternal snow on their peaks. From them, right to his feet, an unbroken tableland of one solid mass of white. Midway between these mountains and himself, runs the Utah line, and somehow—though the idea hardly forms itself in his mind—he would sooner, on account of the young lady he is protecting, it were further away, especially when he remembers that it is but very little over twenty miles by the railroad over which they have come, from the boundaries of the Mormon Territory. He doesn't think long of this, as he gets interested in watching the movements of the locomotives.
These are now both switched on the Y and are moving about slowly, with a view of keeping themselves what is technically called "alive"—that is, their steam up, sufficient to give them power of motion. Every now and again one is run off the Y and down the main track towards Green River and the east, keeping that portion of the road open, as far as the mouth of a long snow shed, which begins a little way from where Harry stands, and disappears in the distance towards Piedmont.