THE DEFIANT FEMALE. 57 



seat by the window, and which they had left, and before 

 either the man's wife or myself had time to prevent her, 

 a resolute, hard-browed, middle-aged, bony female, 

 neither fat nor fair, but perhaps forty, plumped her 

 "round bones" with emphasis into it, stuck her sharp 

 features close to the window, and scowled on us with a 

 triumphant defiance. The lame man's wife, considerably 

 " riled '' at this, began an altercation with this defiant 

 female, and insisted that I should have the seat ; but I 

 bade the man's wife to leave her alone, expressing a mild 

 idea in the ear of this mischief-making Eve that if she 

 had been in truth as much of a man as she looked to be, 

 in that case I would have pulled her out of the seat to 

 which she was really not entitled. She only scowled de 

 fiance at us both, when, at the wish of thelame man's 

 wife, I sat by the side of her husband at my original 

 window, while she took up her position behind us in the 

 pocket of her foe, and made the journey to the bony 

 woman, no doubt, a very pleasant one, for I could hear 

 the broadsides she fired into her until I fell asleep. 



When daylight broke through that most dreary night, 

 to my regret (as we were ascending the wooded hills to 

 Altoona) I found that a thick fog impeded the view, and 

 absolutely confined it to the mere width of the rail. 

 Terribly behind time, and terribly uncomfortable, stop 

 ping at every single hut we passed, and putting down 

 the lame man at one of them (I doubt if this could have 

 been safely done without the support I gave him), and 

 passing over two or three good-looking trout streams or 

 it might have been the same stream over again at eight 

 in the morning instead of six, we arrived at Altoona, when 

 on our appearance a man rushed on the platform sound 

 ing a gong, which I knew to be a signal for breakfast. 



