"Stop your infernal conundrums!" laughs Harry. "Take a five-dollar greenback and go away, and don't you tell a living soul that Miss Travenion is going to be Mrs. Lawrence!"

"I'll take a five-dollar greenback," answers the boy, "because you're the luckiest man I ever seed, and it's business. But I've got somethin'

to tell your young lady!"

"Very well," answers Harry, and leads Buck back to Erma's side. Here the youth remarks with a snicker that brings blushes upon Miss Travenion, "I hear as how the Cap has just been elected president of the road!" A moment after he continues: "I come to tell you the grub's all out.

Somehow, since they got an idea that they might run short, our pa.s.sengers has eaten so as to make 'em run short. I haven't had a pie to sell for four hours, and there's a little gal, the daughter of the engineer of the helper, has got hungry and is screaming for food----"

"Screaming for food?" cries Erma. "Thank you, Buck, for telling me," and the next minute she is in her stateroom.

"Gracious! you'll be short yourself," expostulates Buck as she returns.

"You ain't carrying grub to a giantess!" for she has a beef pie, three fruit tarts, and a couple of apples.

"Perhaps the child's father is hungry also," replies Miss Travenion, who seems very benevolent this afternoon.

"Very well!" says Mr. Powers, "I'll bring the engineer, only don't stint yourself!" and goes on his errand.

A minute after, Erma and Harry are on the platform and the man of the throttle-valve comes to them, carrying his little daughter, who looks pale, and has hungry eyes. Seeing her bounty, the engineer cries, "G.o.d bless you, miss." Then he mutters, "You'll rob yourself."

"Oh, I've more left," answers Miss Travenion; "besides, she needs it,"

for the child has already gone to work ravenously on the fruit tarts.

"G.o.d bless you, just the same," cries the engineer. "Thank the lady, Susie."

But Susie, looking at her benefactress, forgets grat.i.tude in admiration, and babbles, "Beau'ful, beau'ful," extending a fruity hand and putting up two lips embellished with jam.

"Don't, she'll spoil your dress," says the father. But Erma has her already in her arms, giving the little one a kiss, and playing with her and doing some small things to make her happy.

And doing small things for the baby does great things for herself, though she does not know it, for it gains the engineer's heart.

The man wipes a grimy eye with a more grimy sleeve, and mutters, "I was afraid my little one would get sick from starving, and she's all that's left me of her mother, who's buried in Green River--G.o.d bless your kind heart and beautiful face, miss!" and so going away, spreads the news of the beautiful girl's bounty through the train.

But this brings requests from other hungry ones to Miss Travenion, who has a little that they will eat--if she will give it them.

Consequently, about five in the afternoon Lawrence, who does not know of this raid on his beloved's commissariat, and is in the smoking-car pondering over the problem whether the knowledge of the awful death to which Kruger had doomed and from which he had rescued her father, will not make Erma too anxious and too nervous about Ralph Travenion's further fate, finds himself disturbed by Mr. Powers.

The boy comes hurriedly to him and says: "She ain't got nothin' to eat, and she's hungry."

"What do you mean?" cries Harry. "Didn't you say that you had provisioned her for two days?"

"Yes! but she's given it all away to the women in the way-cars."

"No relief train yet?"

"No, an' I don't see any chance of one."

"Very well," remarks Lawrence, putting on his overcoat, "I'll see what I can do."

He steps out of the car, and the best he can think of is to tramp to the telegraph station, and see if there is anything left there. It is over a mile and a half, but a beaten track has been pretty well made in the snow by the brakemen and conductor on some of their visits to that point, so he gets there in a little over half an hour.

Here, the conductor is talking to the telegraph operator, and they seem to be excited over something.

"What's the matter?" asks Harry.

"Nothing, only the line's down between here and Evanston!" says the operator. "It was working twenty minutes ago, but I can't get the Evanston or any other Western office now."

"What was the last news from there?"

"Bad!" replies the man. "They can't get a locomotive or relief train to us till to-morrow. They'll have to pick and shovel their way through a lot of drifts."

"Meantime we have nothing to eat!" grumbles the captain.

"Oh," remarks the conductor, "they telegraphed me this morning that they would send up provisions in sleighs. Some teamsters will bring them up.

They ought to be due here to-night. They can make the eighteen miles, I reckon, in nine hours."

"There is no danger of a train coming from the other way to bring more hungry people?" asks Lawrence earnestly.

"Oh, no!" answers the operator. "That's all fixed. I heard Evanston telegraph Green River this morning, for all pa.s.senger trains bound west to be held at that point--they can feed them there--and all freight to be stopped at Bridger."

"You are sure?"

"Certain!--the order was from Hilliard, the train dispatcher of this division. There's only one pa.s.senger train side-tracked at Granger, and a freight switched off at Carter and another at Bridger, between us and Green River."

"Very well!" says Lawrence. "Have you got anything to eat?"

"You're welcome to the best I can do, Cap," replies the man of the wire, who knows Harry by sight, as most of the employees of the road do. But the best that Lawrence can obtain for his sweetheart is some pork and beans, and some bread made of middlings. These he wraps up in an old newspaper--nothing else being handy--and turns to go, but pauses a moment, and says: "Haven't you got any tea, or coffee, or something of that kind?"

"Tea," cries the operator. "I can accommodate you!"

So, laden with a small package of this ladies' delight, the Captain leaves the log cabin, which is the only house at Aspen, and does duty as a telegraph office, and trudging back through the snow, brings comfort and happiness to Erma, who has grown so hungry in the chill night air that she has almost repented of her generosity.

Buck Powers accommodates her with boiling water, and the Captain would leave her to her meal, but she suddenly stops him and cries: "What have you had to eat?"

"Oh, don't mind me," says Harry.

"But I do--you have tramped through the snow for my comfort; Besides, I must take care of you--because----"

"Why?"

"Oh, well, you know "--a big blush--"what I told you to-day! If you remember--take tea with me!"

"With pleasure, if you put it on that ground!" laughs Harry, who is desperately hungry, and when he has fallen to, forgets himself, and eats a good deal more than his share, though they both enjoy the meal.

But just at this moment there is a cry outside, and a faint hurrah from the negro porter inside.

It is the arrival of the teamsters, who have come, bringing with them comfort and provisions, and everybody is now in the land of plenty, though it is a very rough plenty.

Looking at them, Lawrence wonders why so many men have come with the relief sleighs; but is told they brought them along to help the teams through the drifts.

So they pa.s.s a very happy evening--the young lady singing a song or two for her swain, more beautifully, he thinks, than any prima donna, and saying good-night to him afterwards so tenderly that Lawrence, coming to his own car, astonishes the negro porter by giving him five dollars for making up his bed in the stateroom which is unoccupied, and more roomy than a section.