The section gang having cleared the siding, the train was now pulled in off the main line.
Being assured that there were no wolves nor Indians on the right of way, Miss Landon came out with her father to see the sights. It was growing dark at the end of a short December day, and what with the flying snow and the screams and snorts of the engines that had been uncoupled and were now hammering away at the deep drifts, the merchant and his daughter were unable to hear the whistle of a snow-plough that was at that moment falling down from Cerro summit.
McGuire heard the whistle, backed his buckers on to the siding, and, looking up, saw Miss Landon and her father standing on the edge of a thorough cut that had drifted almost full of snow. Appreciating at a glance the danger they were in, the conductor ran up the track and tried to call to the old gentleman to stand back, but the snow was deep and held him, the storm muffled his voice, and the wind carried his cry away across the hills and lost it among the shrouded cedars.
The big engine, and the snow-plough, under the snow, made little more noise than a ship would make running under water, and it was not until the plough was upon them that the two travellers at the top of the cut saw or heard it. The great machine, which was rounding a slight curve, seemed to be driving straight for them. The girl turned to try to escape, and there before her, not two cars away, she saw what seemed to be a huge black bear, climbing up the bank toward her. At that moment she stepped over the edge, and went rolling down to the bottom of the cut, for the newly drifted snow was soft and light.
It would have been a relief to Miss Landon to have been able to faint, but she did not. She had no sooner reached the outer rail than the big plough picked her up and hurled her, unhurt, almost out of the right of way. She grew dizzy with the sensation of falling, but was able to feel that she was coming down on the soft snow, and that she was still unhurt. Between her going up and coming down she managed to breathe a grateful prayer, so rapidly does the human mind work at the edge of the future.
After what appeared to her a very long time, she came down in a deep drift with her eyes full of snow. She felt soft arms about her waist, and opened her eyes. “Help! help!” she screamed, for the arms were the arms of the big black bear. Now the bear stood up and carried her away. She fainted.
When the sun went down the wind went with it. The moon came up from beyond Ouray and showed the still, cold world sleeping in her robe of white. The smooth, high mountains, twenty, fifty, and even a hundred miles away, looked like polished piles of marble, gleaming in the moonlight. Miss Landon was lying on a couch in the drawing-room of a sleeper. Her father was seated opposite her, and when the conductor looked in to see if anything was wanted, the merchant asked him to sit down. The excitement through which he had passed made the old gentleman feel lonely, away out there in the wilds of a trackless waste. Possibly the stories that Bowen had told him added to his uneasiness. He wanted to smoke. All the other ladies, not having staterooms, had gone to the hotel for the night. Miss Landon was nervous and he did not like her to be alone, so now, making excuse, he went to the smoking-room.
The Ouray train had been unable to reach its destination and had also backed down to Montrose again. McGuire had given Bowen orders to keep out of his train, and Jack was hurt. He had secured a guitar, a man who could play it, some railway employees who thought they could sing, and just as the old gentleman was entering the smoking-room, Jack and his mirth-makers paused beneath Miss Landon’s window. Jack had instructed them to sing “Patsy Git Up From the Fire,” and to begin with the chorus.
The heart of the handsome conductor beat wildly when he found himself alone with the charming girl. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, for the excitement of the afternoon had left her feverish. Her deep blue eyes shed a softer light as she lounged upon the little divan amid the Pullman pillows.