"Indeed, I shall. The train won't start for some time yet. First let

me take you to your car and then make some inquiries. Is no one down

with you?"

"No one; I am alone."

"Alone?"

"I expected to have been with papa by this time. It takes so little

time to run down, you know, and I telegraphed papa I should come on to

meet him. Isn't it most disagreeable weather?"

Glover laughed as he shielded her from the wind. "I suppose that's a

woman's name for it."

The car, coupled to a steampipe, stood just east of the station, and

Glover, helping her into it, went back after a moment to the telegraph

office. It seemed a long time that he was gone, and he returned

covered with snow. She advanced quickly to him in her wraps. "Are

they ready?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid you can't get to Medicine to-night."

"Oh, but I must."

"They have abandoned Number Six."

"What does that mean?"

"The train will be held here to-night on account of the storm. There

will be no train of any kind down before morning; not then if this

keeps up."

"Is there danger of a blockade?"

"There is a blockade."

"Then I must get to papa to-night." She spoke with disconcerting

firmness.

"May I suggest?" he asked.

"Certainly."

"Would it not be infinitely better to go back to the Springs?"

"No, that would be infinitely worse."

"It would be comparatively easy--an engine to pull your car up on a

special order?"

"I will not go back to the Springs to-night, and I will go to Medicine

Bend," she exclaimed, apprehensively. "May I not have a special there

as well as to the Springs?"

Until that moment he had never seen anything of her father in her; but

her father spoke in every feature; she was a Brock.

Glover looked grave. "You may have, I am sure, every facility the

division offers. I make only the point," he said, gently, "that it

would be hazardous to attempt to get to the Bend to-night. I have just

come from the telegraph office. In the district I left this morning

the wires are all down to-night. That is where the storm is coming

from. There is a lull here just now, but----"

"I thank you, Mr. Glover, believe me, very sincerely for your

solicitude. I have no choice but to go, and if I must, the sooner the

better, surely. Is it possible for you to make arrangements for me?"

"It is possible, yes," he answered, guardedly.

"But you hesitate."

"It is a terrible night."

"I like snow, Mr. Glover."

"The danger to-night is the wind."

"Are you afraid of the wind?" There was a touch of ridicule in her

half-laughing tone.




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