At Cheyenne, where the train halts for dinner, the young girl helped her father into his outer garments, buttoned herself hastily into her homespun jacket bordered with gray fur, pinned her little hat firmly to her crown of golden braids, hid her hands in her muff,—she did not wait to put on gloves,—and led the way to the dining-room.
The travelers in No. 8 disposed of their meal rapidly, in their usual close but silent conjunction, and returned at once to the car.
The old gentleman and his daughter walked the windy platform, and cast rather forlorn glances at the crowd bustling about in the bleak winter sunlight. When they took their seats again, the father's pale blue eyes were still paler, his face looked white and drawn with the cold; but Phebe was like a rose: with her wonderful, pure color the girl was beautiful. The young man of No. 8 looked at her with a startled reluctance, as if her sweetness wounded him.
Then he seemed to have resolved to look at her no more. He leaned his head back in his corner, and closed his eyes; the train shook him slightly as he sat in moody preoccupation with his thoughts, and the miles of track flew by.
At Green River, at midnight, the Portland car was dropped by its convoy of the Union Pacific, and was coupled with a train making up for the Oregon Short Line. There was hooting and backing of engines, slamming of car doors, flashing of conductors' lanterns, voices calling across the tracks. One of these voices could be heard, in the wakeful silence within the car, as an engine from the west steamed past in the glare of its snow-wreathed headlight.
"No. 10 stuck this side of Squaw Creek. Bet you don't make it before Sunday!"
The outbound conductor's retort was lost in the clank of couplings as the train lurched forward on the slippery rails.
"Phebe, is thee awake?" the old gentleman softly called to his daughter, about the small hours.
"Yes, father. Want anything?"
"Are those ventilators shut? I feel a cold draft in the back of my berth."