“I’ll bet he is!” laughed Nelson. He shouted up to the civil engineer again: “What are you roosting up there for? Don’t you know enough to go in when it snows?”
“I declare, it doesn’t look as though I did, does it?” repeated Frank Bowman, rather grimly. “But to tell the truth, I’m in trouble.”
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Nelson, trying to see him through the curtain of falling snow.
“I’ve hurt my arm. I don’t think it is broken, but it’s wrenched badly and I can’t use it to help myself down from this trestle,” replied Frank Bowman. “I got up here to secure some tools that one of the men must have left in a knee of the structural work. Pretty near fell off and broke my foolish neck, for I slipped on an icy girder. And in saving myself, I hurt my arm. If you can give me some help, I’ll be much obliged.”
“In a minute!” cried the school teacher. “I’ve an encumbrance here in the shape of a little lost girl.”
“I ain’t lost!” shouted Lottie. “It’s only my echo that’s lost. I couldn’t find it. Did you see my echo, Mr. Bowman?”
“Bless your heart, Lottie! I haven’t seen anything up here for two hours but the angels shaking out their feather-beds,” returned the civil engineer, laughing rather grimly.
“Oo-oo!” squealed Lottie. “If the angels hafter sleep on such cold feathers, don’t you think they’d get frostbite? Mr. Haley rubbed my feets ’cause he was ’fraid I’d get frostbite.”
“You’ve been out some time in this storm, then?” demanded the civil engineer, as Nelson climbed up to reach him.
“Longer than I care to be out,” replied Nelson. “Come on! let’s have your foot. I’ll guide it. You can hang on with your right hand. I’ll steady you.”