"Bad!" replies the man. "They can't get a locomotive or relief train to us till to-morrow. They'll have to pick and shovel their way through a lot of drifts."
"Meantime we have nothing to eat!" grumbles the captain.
"Oh," remarks the conductor, "they telegraphed me this morning that they would send up provisions in sleighs. Some teamsters will bring them up. They ought to be due here to-night. They can make the eighteen miles, I reckon, in nine hours."
"There is no danger of a train coming from the other way to bring more hungry people?" asks Lawrence earnestly.
"Oh, no!" answers the operator. "That's all fixed. I heard Evanston telegraph Green River this morning, for all passenger trains bound west to be held at that point—they can feed them there—and all freight to be stopped at Bridger."
"You are sure?"
"Certain!—the order was from Hilliard, the train dispatcher of this division. There's only one passenger train side-tracked at Granger, and a freight switched off at Carter and another at Bridger, between us and Green River."
"Very well!" says Lawrence. "Have you got anything to eat?"
"You're welcome to the best I can do, Cap," replies the man of the wire, who knows Harry by sight, as most of the employees of the road do. But the best that Lawrence can obtain for his sweetheart is some pork and beans, and some bread made of middlings. These he wraps up in an old newspaper—nothing else being handy—and turns to go, but pauses a moment, and says: "Haven't you got any tea, or coffee, or something of that kind?"
"Tea," cries the operator. "I can accommodate you!"