Having procured a drink, and also a package of cigarettes and a flask of liquor, the two set off through the storm for the railroad station, a mile and a quarter away. It was a hard and tiresome journey, and more than once they had to stop to rest and figure out where they were. Twice Tim Crapsey insisted upon it that he must have a “bracer” from the flask.
“I’m froze through and through,” he declared.
“Well, I’m half frozen myself,” retorted Ward Porton, and when he saw the man drinking he could not resist the temptation to take some of the liquor himself.
“We’ll be in a fine pickle if we get to Pepsico and then find that the train isn’t coming through,” remarked the former moving-picture actor, when about three-quarters of the journey had been covered and they were resting in the shelter of a roadside barn.
“That’s a chance we’ve got to take,” returned his companion. “But I don’t think the train will be stormbound. Most of the tracks through here are on an embankment, and the wind would keep them pretty clear.”
It was after one o’clock when the pair finally 136 gained the little railroad station at Pepsico. They found over a dozen men and several women present, all resting in the tiny waiting-room, trusting that the train would soon put in an appearance.
“The wires are down so they can’t tell exactly where the train is,” said one of the men, in reply to a question from Porton. “They are hoping, though, that it isn’t many miles away.”
From time to time one of the would-be passengers would go out on the tracks to look and listen, and at last one of these announced that a train was on the way.
“But I can’t tell whether it’s a passenger train or a freight,” he said.
“Let’s git on it even if it’s a freight,” said Tim Crapsey to Ward Porton. “She’ll take us to Crumville jest as well.”