CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 289 



-ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling truth flashed upon me instantly-^ 

 we were captives in a snow-drift ! ' All hands to the rescue ! ' Every man sprang 

 ■to obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the 

 driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now 

 anight bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards — anything, everything 

 .that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It was a weird 

 picture, that small company of frantic men fighting the banking snows, half in the 

 ■blackest shadow and half in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector. 



" One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts. The storm 

 barricaded the track with a dozen drifts while we dug one away. And worse than 

 this, it was discovered that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the 

 ■enemy had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of the driving-wheel ! With a free track 

 ibefore us we should still have been helpless. We entered the car wearied with 

 labor, and very sorrowful. We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed 

 .our situation. We had no provisions whatever — in this lay our chief distress. We 

 could not freeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender. This was our 

 only comfort. The discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening decision 

 of the conductor, viz ., that it would be death for any man to attempt to travel fifty 

 miles on foot through snow like that. We could not send for help ; and even 

 if we could, it could not come. We must submit, and await, as patiently as we 

 might, succor or starvation ! I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary 

 ■ chill when those words were uttered. 



" Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur here and there about 

 ' the car, caught fitfully between the rising and falling of the blast; the lamps grew 

 dim ; and the majority of the castaways settled themselves among the flickering 

 .'•shadows to think — to forget the present, if they could — to sleep, if they might. 



" The eternal night — it surely seemed eternal to us — wore its lagging hours away 

 sX. last, and the cold grey dawn broke in the east. As the light grew stronger the 

 passengers began to stir and give signs of life, one after another, and each in turn 

 pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and 

 ; glanced out at the windows upon the cheerless prospect. It was cheerless indeed! 

 ■ — not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation ; nothing but a vast 

 19 



