“A little cold,” Janet managed to smile. “How did you get here?”
“Never mind that. The first thing is to get out of here and where you’ll be safe and warm.”
Other men poured into the bus. Janet recognized some of them. Ed’s father was there. So was Jim’s, Cora’s and Margie’s. Someone had a big bottle of hot coffee and cardboard cups. The steaming hot liquid, bitter without sugar or cream, was passed around.
Janet drank her cup eagerly and the hot beverage warmed her chilled body.
Extra coats and mufflers had been brought by the rescue party.
“Get as warm as you can. It’s going to be a cold ride to the paved road,” advised her father.
They were soon ready and once more the door of the bus was opened. Outside a powerful searchlight glowed and as they neared it Janet saw a large caterpillar tractor. Behind this was a hayrack, mounted on runners and well filled with hay.
“Everybody into the rack. Burrow down deep so you’ll keep warm.”
Janet’s father counted them as they got into the rack, yelled to the operator of the tractor to start, and then piled into the rack himself.
With a series of sharp reports from its exhaust, the lumbering tractor got into motion, jerking the rack and its precious load behind it.