"Let's go!" exclaimed Peggy. "That's what we are after—scenery! I don't care if it is cold. I've got my furs. Montana, you say? And the Soo? That sounds like Indians. What do you say, Jack?"
"Oh, I don't mind!" answered her husband. "Andrews knows best. He's been that way. Sure, if you say so."
Andrews hid a smile by lighting another cigar.
He hesitated a moment as if giving the matter the consideration it deserved.
III
All day long the snow had been falling steadily in big, fluffy flakes. The heavy train ploughed through dense pine-clad ravines, beside torrents buried far below the snow, under sheds into whose inky blackness the engine plunged as into the bowels of the earth, across vibrating trestles, and up grades that seemed never-ending, where the driving-wheels slipped and ground ineffectually, then clutched the sanded rails and slowly forged onward. For two days it had been thus, and from the windows only the gently falling, ever-falling snow met the eye. Heavy clouds shrouded the shoulders of the mountains, and the gorges between them were choked with mist. And onward, upward, always upward groaned the train.
Inside Jack's compartment in the first Pullman sat the four members of our party playing cards, now on the best of terms. They had long since given up condoling upon the weather, and had settled down to making the best of it with cards, chess-board, and books. Between McGinnis and the prisoner flowed an unending stream of anecdotes and adventures. It could not be denied that the erstwhile bank president was a man of much culture and wide reading. He had studied for the bar, and from time to time astounded Dockbridge by the acuteness of his mental processes. This was the afternoon of the second day, and they were just completing their thirteenth rubber of whist.