But one hulking fellow, with a large mock diamond in his shirt-front, and clumsy rings on his coarse and dirty fingers, stepped forward and said that he was a hungry man, that he had lost money by the—— company already, waiting a day and a night in that blamed snow-bank, and that he was going to have a chicken,—or two chickens, if he wanted them,—and he was decidedly of the opinion that there was no express messenger on the train who would see the color of his money in the transaction.
Samson Newell was evidently a man of few words in a case of emergency. He paused for only an instant to assure himself that the man was in earnest, then he slid open one of the side-doors of the express-car, and stretched forth a hand whose clutch was like the closing of a claw of steel. He seized the bejewelled stranger by the coat-collar, shook him for an instant, and dropped him,—dropped him into a soft snow-drift whose top was level with the car-floor. Whether the unfortunate worked a subterranean passage to one of the passenger-cars and there buried himself in the privacy of a saloon is not known; he certainly was not seen again till after relief came to the imprisoned train.
There was neither noise nor confusion in the matter of paying for and dividing the poultry. Samson Newell had already made himself prominent among the captive travellers. He had eaten nothing himself, that he might the better provide, so far as his limited provision went, for his wife and children; he had even gone through the cars with his scanty luncheon of cakes and apples, and economically fed other people's little ones, besides administering to the wants of an invalid lady upon the train, who was journeying alone. He was, therefore, a favorite with all on board. His action, enforcing payment for the provision that would very likely, but for him, have been taken by force, caused the passengers to defer to him as a leader whose strength and courage fitted him for the post, and so he presided at the distribution of the chickens without dispute.
The fuel in the stoves was replenished, and quite a large space was cleared to the leeward of the locomotive, where a fire was built from the neighboring fences, so that in an hour's time from the finding of the poultry the entire body of passengers were busy picking the bones of roasted and broiled fowls. It was not so bad a dinner! To be sure, it was rather chilly, now and then, when the opening of a car-door, to let in a half-frozen gentleman with a half-cooked chicken in his hand, admitted with him a snow-laden blast from without; and then the viands were not served à la Soyer, but there was an appetite for sauce and a certain gypsy-like feeling of being at a picnic that served as a relish. And so, in the year of our Lord 18—, two hundred strangers sat down together at a most extraordinary Thanksgiving-dinner, of which no account has hitherto been published, if I except a vote of thanks, "together with an exceedingly chaste and richly chased silver goblet," (so the newspaper description read,) which were presented to the conductor by "the surviving passengers," after he had procured help and rescued them from their perplexing predicament.
But dinners end. Twelve o'clock came, and still the snow was falling thick and fast, and still the white plain about them mounted slowly and surely towards the skies. Then the passengers became yet more weary and unhappy. Old Woollen, the unfortunate, detailed his woes to more and more appreciative audiences. Even the Funny Man—with a fresh flask of whiskey—sighed almost dismally between frequent uneasy "cat-naps." And Samson Newell, first seeing his wife comfortably settled, and his little ones safely disposed about her, strode up and down, from car to car, with a gloom of disappointment on his face that was almost ferocious. "Too bad!" he muttered, "too bad! too bad! too bad!"
One o'clock came, and the snow held up! At first the passengers noticed that the flakes fell less thickly. Then, gradually and ever slowly decreasing, they finally ceased falling altogether. The clouds drifted from before the face of the heavens, and the sun came out. It shone over a broad surface of glistening snow, with here and there a fence-post obtruding into notice, but otherwhere a cold, blank expanse of whiteness. One or two remote farm-houses, with blue smoke rising in thin, straight columns from their chimneys, a wide stretch of woodland to the right, distant hills bounding all the prospect,—and everywhere snow. No fences, no roads, no paths,—but only snow!
The passengers gazed out of the windows or stood upon the platforms,—drawn thither by the warmth of the sun,—with feelings almost akin to despair. Presently it was proposed to make for the farm-houses, and fifteen of the more adventurous started. A few struggled through and arrived in something over an hour at the nearest house, wet to the skin with melted snow, and too much fatigued to think of returning,—but most of them gave out at the end of the first half-mile, and came back to the train.
So the prisoners sat down and whiled away the time as best they might, in the relation of anecdotes, telling stories, and grumbling. A few slept, and a large number tried to do so, without success.
The slow hand of Time, moving more slowly for them than they remembered it to have ever moved before, crept on to three o'clock, and still there was no prospect of relief and no incident of note save the arrival through the snow of a dozen men sent by the conductor. They brought word that help was approaching from the nearest station where a sufficiently powerful locomotive could be obtained, and that they would probably be started on their way during the next forenoon. These messengers also brought a small supply of provisions and a number of packs of cards, with the latter of which many of the passengers were soon busy. They now resigned themselves to another night in the drift.
But at half after three occurred an incident that restored hope of a more speedy deliverance to a few of the captives.