Oh, Alan! Are ye no patriot, no product of the Scotsmen of the old time? And I, I thought your blood as blue as the water in the mountain lakes fresh tinted from the sky. Oh, Alan! my Alan! ye looked so braw, barrin' the black breeks ye wore to protect the single patch of ye from the raw weather. Oh, Alan! did our stern ancestors do the like of that? Cared they for squall or flurry or the frost rime? Oh, my Alan! I love ye. Ye ken it well, but we must not marry. Think ye I would tak pride in children of the man of the black breeks? I'm gey—sore gey! Your "AGNES."
Now note what happened! Now pity me! Alan was heart-riven and wild, and came to me in his distress. I was the only person in the great city who could give authoritatively the story of his brown leg. I was the only person who could re-establish him in Agnes' mind as an ardent Scot. Imagine a mission like that. Imagine a man having to go and talk to a young lady about one of her lover's legs! I don't know how I did it, but certainly I did it. I want to say here and now and frankly—and I don't care whether she reads it or not—that when I first met her, the temperature was far more sultry than we had ever found it upon the Amazon. It dropped many degrees, though, before my story was concluded.
Well, they have a boy about two years old, and they have named him after me. I don't know what I'll do to that boy. The little wretch hugs me so strenuously that I believe he is part anaconda.
And this ended the story-telling for the day. Their imaginations had been "stretched enough" commented kindly Mrs. Livingston.
CHAPTER IX
THE HUGE HOUND'S MOOD
The morning of the third day of rude experience opened somewhat more brightly for "the wastrels of the waste," as the Young Lady of the party very nicely designated them, for it had cleared. There remained, however, the thought that the addition to the snowfall must delay the work of rescue, an apprehension which was soon confirmed. Stafford was using the telegraph with no inconvenience now. He had contrived to bring a wire from the main line into the smoking car, and communication from there with those on the relief train was an easy matter. The news that came was not exhilarating. Very slow headway was being made, so the workers beyond the drifts reported. The railroad company had not yet installed the rotary snow-plows which, later, proved most effective, hurling the snow to a distance and clearing the way thoroughly, while the one in use but bored its way through the drifts, only to have a part of the tossed-up mass come whelming back to the track again. There was a vast amount of shovelling to do, and that took time. The resolute workers "at the other end of the trouble," as the trainmen called it, were not discouraged, but they admitted that they were not attending a midsummer picnic. In fact there was no semblance of a picnic about it. They were not so assured now that release would come to the enthralled on the fourth day, at the latest. They but expressed a glittering confidence that the fifth day, beyond all doubt, would see the end. This assurance by no means satisfied the captive passengers. They felt that the White Jailor still held the keys and had them in his inside pocket.
There was much gossip over the emergency line and, despite the somewhat oppressive news, there was infused an element of cheerfulness by this easy, sympathetic communication with the outside world. The car in which the instrument was placed was a magnet, for, though Stafford was the only one on the train possessing sufficient experience to accomplish what he had done, there were some who understood a little of the science of telegraphy and could receive and send messages, after a fashion. Communication between the trains was going on most of the time.
Stafford had completed his work at the instrument and returned to his own car, where the usual group, with others who had wandered in, were assembled, amusing themselves as best they could for the after-luncheon hour. He had noted the outline of a woman's head as he entered, and though her face was not toward him, knew very well to whom the fair head belonged. A sudden courageous impulse swayed him to its way, an impulse for which he had reason to be grateful all his life. He advanced and seated himself directly across the aisle from the Far Away Lady, who looked at him and smiled a quiet welcome. He was not quite himself as he began talking to her, but he did well, under the circumstances, and so did she. It was a meeting as delicious as constrained, for this was the first occasion on which they had opportunity to engage in anything like a real conversation. Hesitant, happy but, in a vague way, apprehensive, with a trying past recalled by tones as familiar to each as if five years were but an hour, the two exchanged only commonplaces at first, comment on the curious manner in which they were now held from the rest of humanity, or speculation over the immediate prospect. It was all commonplace, or would have been so, if either been able to veil the story of the eyes. Eyes are faithful but sometimes faithless servitors, meaning well and doing ill. None can control them absolutely, lovers least of all.