Albert got his things together, and pulled his cap firmly down on his head.
"Here goes!" he muttered.
"Hold y'r breath!" shouted the brakeman. Albert swung himself to the platform before the station—a platform of planks along which the snow was streaming like water.
"Good night!" called the brakeman.
"Good night!"
"All-l abo-o-o-ard!" called the conductor somewhere in the storm; the brakeman swung his lantern, and the train drew off into the blinding whirl, and the lights were soon lost in the clouds of snow.
No more desolate place could well be imagined. A level plain, apparently bare of houses, swept by a ferocious wind; a dingy little den called a station—no other shelter in sight; no sign of life save the dull glare of two windows to the left, alternately lost and found in the storm.
Albert's heart contracted with a sudden fear; the outlook was appalling.
"Where's the town?" he yelled savagely at a dimly seen figure with a lantern—a man evidently locking the station door, his only refuge.
"Over there," was the surly reply.