"The man, Friday," finished Nan.

"Goody! that's who he is," agreed Bess. "He's Friday. Oh! if Laura Polk were only here, wouldn't she have lots of fun with him?"

"Seems as though those two drummers were bothering poor Friday quite enough."

They heard the little spaniel yelping the moment they opened the baggage car door.

"The poor 'ittle sing!" cooed Bess, running to the corner where the puppy was imprisoned. "Oh! how cold it is in here. It would be a little icicle, so it would be, in a little while."

"Let's see where he's going, and whom he belongs to," Mr. Carter said.

"I'll have to make a note of this, and so will Jim, the baggage-man. You want to take good care of this little tyke, for the railroad is responsible for him while he is in transit."

He stooped down and brought his light to bear upon the tag wired to the top of the crate. "Ravell Bulson, Jr., Owneyville, Illinois," he read aloud, making a note of it in his book.

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nan.

"Oh!" repeated Bess.

Then both together the chums gasped: "That fat man!"

"Hullo!" observed the conductor, slipping the toggles out of the hasp, which kept the door of the dog crate closed. "Do you girls know the owner of this pup? You seem to know everybody."

"We know a Mr. Ravell Bulson by sight, Mr. Carter," Nan said quietly.

"And he's just the meanest man!" began impulsive Bess; but her chum stopped her with a glance.

"Well! Mr. Ravell Bulson, Jr., has a fine pup here," declared the conductor, releasing the agitated little creature.

The spaniel could not show his delight sufficiently when he was out of the crate. He capered about them, licking the girl's shoes, tumbling down in his haste and weakness, and uttering his funny little bark in excited staccato.

Bess finally grabbed him up and, after kissing her, suddenly, right under the ear, and making her squeal, he snuggled down in her arms, his little pink tongue hanging out and his eyes shining (so Bess declared) like "two brown stars."

"'Brown stars' is good," chuckled Nan. "You'll be talking about a cerise sky next, with a pea-green sun."

"Such a carping critic!" returned Bess. "But what care I? His eyes are brown stars, so now! And if you're not very good, Nan Sherwood, I'll make him bite you."

Mr. Carter was leading the way to the forward car, and the girls followed with the spaniel. It seemed a little lighter under the tunneled snow-bank between the two cars, and the conductor said, with some satisfaction:

"I believe it has stopped snowing and will clear up. I do surely hope that is the weather programme. We want to get out of here."

"And walk to Tillbury?" cried Nan.

"It would be one good, long walk," responded the conductor, grimly. "Hi, Jim!" he added to the baggage-man, whose face appeared through the tobacco smoke that filled the forward baggage car. "Jim, these young ladies are going to take care of the pup. Belongs to Ravell Bulson, Jr., Owneyville, Illinois. Make a note of it."

"Sure!" Jim said.

"Say! that's a funny thing," put in another man, who wore the lettered cap of the express company. "I've been looking over my way-bill, Carter, and a man named Ravell Bulson of that same address has shipped a package to himself from the Bancroft Creamery siding, up above Freeling. Package marked 'Gla.s.s--handle with care.'"

"Bully!" exclaimed the conductor. "That's condensed milk in gla.s.s jars, I bet. A number-one product. I've seen it. Anything else eatable on your list?"

"Not a thing, Carter."

"How far will twenty-four cans of condensed milk go among this gang of starving people?" growled a man in overalls and a greasy cap, whom the girls knew must be the engineer.

"You keep the fire up, Horace, so's we can melt snow," said the conductor, "and we can dilute the milk all right. It's good stuff."

"Fire!" exclaimed the engineer. "How do you expect my fireman to keep up a blaze under that boiler on the s.h.a.g-end of nothing? I tell you the fire's going out in less than an hour. She ain't making a pound of steam right now."

"Great Peter, Horace!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Carter, "don't say that. We have _got_ to have fire!"

"Well, you show me how to keep one going," said the engineer. "Unless you know some way of burning snow, I don't see how you're going to do it."

"Take it from me, we must find a way to keep steam up in these cars,"

said Mr. Carter. "We've shut off the last two cars. The smoker's packed with pa.s.sengers as tight as a can of sardines."

"Oh! I wish he wouldn't talk about things eatable," groaned Bess, in Nan's ear.

"Better put the women and the children in the Pullman," suggested the baggage-man.

"Can't. Their tickets don't call for first-cla.s.s accommodations," said the conductor, stubbornly, "and none of them wants to pay the difference in tariff."

"You've got your hands full, Carter," said the express messenger.

"How about the case of milk?" and he dragged a box into the middle of the floor.

"Say! you fellows let that case alone," exclaimed an unpleasant voice.

"That's mine. You the conductor? I have been hunting all over for you."

Nan and Bess had both turned, startled, when this speech began. It came from the fat man whom they had seen asleep in the smoking car. And, now that his face was revealed, the chums recognized Mr. Ravell Bulson, the man who had spoken so harshly of Nan's father the day of the collision on Pendragon Hill.

"Say! this is the expressman, I guess," pursued Mr. Bulson. "You're the man I really want to see. You'll see my name on that box--'R. Bulson, Owneyville, Illinois.' That's me. And I want to open that box and get something out of it."

CHAPTER VIII

SI SNUBBINS DROPS IN

"Do let's get out of here before he sees us," whispered Nan to her chum.

"No, I won't," returned Bess, in the same tone. "I want to hear how it comes out."

"Of course that horrid man won't let them use the milk for the poor little children on the train. And, goodness, Bess! you've got his dog right in your arms this moment."

"Well," said the stubborn Bess, "if that fat man takes a jar of condensed milk out of that box for himself, I'll make him give this poor little puppy some of it. Now you see if I don't!"

At first it did not look as though the fat man was going to get any of the milk even for his own consumption. The expressman said gruffly: "I can't let you open the package. It's against the rules of the company."