SNOWED UP. 
301 
wind rioted furiously over the broad Missouri plains, 
alternately building up huge castles of snow and throwing 
them down again, like a fretful child ; overtaking the 
belated teamster on his homeward journe}^, clutching him 
with its icy hand, and leaving him buried in a tomb more 
spotless than the fairest marble ; howling, shrieking, 
racing madly to and fro, never out of breath, always the 
same tireless, pitiless, awful power. Rocks, fields, some- 
times even forests, were blotted out of the landscape. A 
mere hyphen upon the broad, white page lay the Western- 
bound train. The fires in the locomotives (there were 
two of them) had been suffered to go out, and the great 
creatures waited silently together, while the snow drifted 
higher and higher upon their patient backs. 
When Bob had waked that morning, to find the tem- 
pest more furious than ever, and the train stuck fast in a 
huge snow-bank, his first thought was of dismay at the 
possible detention in the narrow limits of the Pullman, 
which seemed much colder than it had before ; his next 
was to wonder how the change of fortune would affect 
Gertrude Raymond. Of course, he had long ago become 
acquainted with the brown travelling-suit and fur collar. 
Of course, there had been numberless little services for 
him to perform for her and the old gentleman, who had 
indeed proved to be her father. 
Once more he became misanthropic. " There's Miss 
Raymond, now," he growled to himself, knocking his 
head savagely against the upper berth in his attempt to 
