It was getting late in the afternoon, and they were tired and anxious to reach B——before night, when the train—after a good deal of puffing, and backing, and jerking forward and back—stopped short.
Several of the men went out to see what was the matter. Soon they began to come back, and one, whose seat was next to Mrs. Jervis, said, as he took his seat, “It doesn’t look much like getting to B—— to-night.”
“What is the trouble?” asked Mrs. Jervis.
“Tremendous drifts in the cut,” answered Mr. Camp. “Snow falling faster than ever, and wind piling it up faster than a thousand men could shovel it out. This cut is a regular snow-trap.”
“Can’t the engine plow through?” asked Mrs. Jervis anxiously.
“That’s what has been tried,” said the man; “but the snow is higher than the smokestack, and packed so tight it’s almost solid. We may be here a week, for all I see, unless the storm holds up and we get help.”
“Oh, mother!” wailed Ethel, “shan’t we get to grandmother’s for Christmas?”
“I hope so, Ethel!” said Mrs. Jervis soothingly. “It’s three days to Christmas, you know, and a good deal may happen in three days. Couldn’t we go back?” she asked her neighbor. “If we could get back to Minneapolis it would be better than staying here,” and she glanced anxiously at her daughter, whose wide, staring eyes were fixed on Mr. Camp, as if he held her fate in his hands.
“They tried a while ago, you remember,” he said; “but the cut we passed through a mile back is now as bad as this. The fact is, we are between two cuts, and for all I see are prisoners here till we get help from outside.”
Mrs. Jervis heard this with dismay, and Ethel with despair. She buried her face in her mother’s lap, and shook all over with the violence of her sobs.