The other members of the company laughed—all but Mr. Sneed and Wellington Bunn. The former went forward to consult a brakeman as to the prospects of the train becoming snowbound, while Mr. Bunn, who wore his tall hat, and was bundled up in a fur coat, huddled close to the window, and doubtless dreamed of the days when he had played Shakespearean rôles; and wondered if he would play them again.
The train went on, not that any great speed was attained, for the grade was up hill, and there had been heavy storms. There was also the prospect of more snow, and this, amid the rugged hills of New England, was not reassuring.
"But we expect hard weather up here," said Mr. Pertell to his company. "The more snow and ice we have, the better pictures we can get."
"That's right!" agreed Russ.
"Humph! I'm beginning to wish I hadn't come," growled Mr. Sneed, who had received information from a brakeman to the effect that trains were often snowbound in that part of the State.
A few feathery flakes began falling now, and there was the promise of more in the clouds overhead, and in the sighing of the North wind.
"Does your throat hurt you much, Daddy?" asked Ruth, as she noticed her father wrapping a silk handkerchief closer about his neck.
"Just a little; I think it is the unusual cold," he replied. "But I do not mind it. The air is sharper here than in New York; but it is drier. Perhaps it may do me good. I think I will use my spray," and he got out his atomizer.
There were not many passengers beside the members of the film theatrical company in the car in which Ruth and her sister rode. Among them, however, were two young ladies, about the age of Alice, and as Ruth went down the aisle once, to get a drink of water, she noted that one of the strangers appeared to be ill.
"Pardon me," spoke Ruth, with ready sympathy, "but can I do anything to help you?"