"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.