to bid me farewell. He was too far gone to speak, but twice a faint
pressure against my frozen fingers told me that he had understood me,
and I responded in the same manner. These were our farewells to each
other in this world, a fitting finish to the tragedies of our toilful
and thankless lives. I sank back into the snow and while I dreamily
watched the snowflakes weave our spotless shroud, I dozed away and
dreamed of those glorious, care-free days when I was yet with the "old
folks" at home, chasing bright-hued butterflies in the warmth of the
sunshine of youth and happiness.

The next thing I recall was a burning sensation in my throat, which
involuntarily caused me to open my eyes. I felt as if I had slept for
such a long time that all my faculties had become useless, for I could
not, try as I might, utter a word or move a muscle, although to this day
I vividly remember having heard a man, whom I could plainly see as he
poured a steaming liquid into my open mouth, exclaim: "Thank God we are
having better luck reviving this poor fellow than we had with the other
one! Look, he has just opened his eyes, and listen, can you not hear him
faintly groan?" Then I wandered back into dream-land--into a most
dangerous delirium which lasted for several weeks and during which I
hung as if by a mere thread, betwixt life and death.

When I recovered my reason, I found that I was domiciled in the bunk
house, that together with the section house and tool house form the
total of buildings upon every railroad "section" reservation. The
foreman and his family resided in the section house, a two-story
building; the tool house was used for storing the hand car and the
track tools, while the bunk house, a small, one-story building, formed
primarily the sleeping quarters, and secondly the social center of the
section crew, whose five roughly dressed men were only permitted to
enter the adjacent section house, where they boarded, at meal hours, as
the foreman's home was at all other times considered by them a sort of
hallowed spot. But the bunk house was their own, as within it they slept
at night in the wooden "bunks", which were nailed one adjoining the
other, all around the boarded walls, while in the center a small stove
in which a roaring fire was kept up, made things comfortable for the
inmates when they returned in the evenings after their day's work was
done, and all day every Sunday--their day of rest.

While the men were absent