“Come on!” he said. “The engineer won’t wait.” He pushed Florence out, and coming back a few moments afterwards, sat down opposite Kit.
“Did Florence state why she sent Ted to the smithy? My notion is she didn’t want Alison to get the train.”
“It’s possible, but we won’t bother about it,” Kit replied. “How did you get the locomotive?”
Austin smiled. “You’re not going to put me wise? Well, when we made the bridge, all Carrie could tell me was you had gone to look for Alison. The snow was fierce and when I found out Alison was at the gravel pit and you had started up the line, the train had left Harper’s. I was scared, Kit, but Florence was desperate. She declared, if our feet were cold we could stop by the stove; she would shove off for the gravel pit.”
“Miss Grey is obstinate,” Kit remarked with a twinkle. “You wouldn’t stop for cold feet, Bob, and I daresay you knew mine were colder. But go ahead!”
“We put a trolley on the rails. I hustled Florence into the office and told Carrie to stand against the door. We crossed the bridge and soon afterwards hit an Awkward drift. When the trolley jumped the rails we tried to carry her across. The snow was dry and loose and we went in to the waist; the wind lashed the stuff about us, and we must lift the heavy car. I doubted if we could make it, but the boys were willing. They meant to get you.”
Kit nodded. “I can picture the fight, but when you’re up against a blizzard pluck and muscle won’t carry you very far. Well?”
“By and by my foreman came along. They’d got a phone call from Harper’s; the train had run into a big drift a few miles east, and the engineer steamed back to the settlement. In the meantime, the Winnipeg bosses had wired the operator to hold all traffic until the plows arrived. He had got my message and he sent the loco to the bridge. We butted her through the drift that stopped the trolley, and made the shack. Carrie and the others are at the Harper’s hotel——”
The cook carried in some hot food, and soon after Kit got supper he went to bed.
In the morning the gale had dropped and the thermometer rose, but Kit was forced to wait until the track was cleared. After some hours a big rotary plow and a freight locomotive arrived from the east, and hurling back waves of snow, rolled across the bridge. When the smoke melted in the plain Kit got a hand-car and two men and set off. The plow had cleared the rails and the car made good progress, but Kit brooded moodily.