We got along better than we expected. The wind had shifted to the northwest, so it was at our backs. We passed Johnson’s deserted house and finally came within sight of the town through the flying snow. We were not twenty rods from the station when suddenly Jim exclaimed:
“Why, there’s a train!”
Sure enough, just beyond the station was an engine with a big snow-plow on it, with one freight-car and a passenger-car. A dozen 39 men with shovels stood beside it stamping their feet and swinging their arms to keep from freezing. There were faces at the car-windows, and Burrdock and Tom Carr were walking up and down the depot platform. We came up to them looking pretty well astonished, I guess.
“When I got to the Junction yesterday I got orders to take another train and come back here and get you folks,” said Burrdock in answer to our looks. “Just got here after shoveling all night, and want to leave as soon as we can, before it gets to drifting any worse. This branch is to be abandoned for the winter and the station closed. Hurry up and get aboard!”
Jim and I were both too astonished to speak.
“Yes,” said Tom Carr, “we were just starting after you when we saw you coming. We’re going to take Sours’s horses and the cow in the box-car. I just sent Andrew over after them–and the chickens, too, if he can catch them.”
I don’t know how it was, but my face flushed up as hot as if it had been on fire. I felt the tears coming into my eyes, I was in that state of passion. 40
“Tom,” I said, “who was left in charge of Sours’s things?”
“Why–why, you were,” answered Tom, almost as much astonished as I had been a moment before.
“Who gave you authority to meddle with them?” I said.