dly opened the door of the smoking car a burst of
sound rushed out, almost startling in its volume--piercing cries of
children, shrill tones of women's voices, the guttural scolding of men,
the expostulations of the conductor himself, who had a group of
complainants about him, and the thunderous snoring of a fat man in the
nearest seat, who slept with his feet cocked up on another seat and a
handkerchief over his face.

"Goodness!" gasped Bess, pulling back. "Let's not go in. It's a
bear garden."

"Why, I don't understand it," murmured Nan. "Women and children in the
smoker? Whoever heard the like?"

"They've turned off the heat in the other two cars and made us all come
in here, lady," explained a little dark-haired and dark-eyed woman who
sat in a seat near the door. "They tell us there is not much coal, and
they cannot heat so many cars."

She spoke without complaint, in the tone of resignation so common among
the peasantry of Europe, but heard in North America from but two
people--the French Canadian and the peon of Mexico. Nan had seen so many
of the former people in the Big Woods of Upper Michigan the summer
before, that she was sure this poor woman was a "Canuck." Upon her lap
lay a delicate, whimpering, little boy of about two years.

"What is the matter with the poor little fellow, madam?" asked Nan,
compassionately.

"With my little Pierre, mademoiselle?" returned the woman.

"Yes," said Nan.

"He cries for food, mademoiselle," said the woman simply. "He has eaten
nothing since we left the Grand Gap yesterday at three o'clock; except
that the good conductor gave us a drink of coffee this morning. And his
mother has nothing to give her poor Pierre to eat. It is sad, is it not?"

CHAPTER VI

A SERIOUS PROBLEM

The chums from Tillbury looked at each other in awed amazement. Nothing
just like this had ever come to their knowledge before. The healthy
desire of a vigorous appetite for food was one thing; but this child's
whimpering need and its mother's patient endurance of her own lack of
food for nearly twenty-four hours, shook the two girls greatly.

"Why, the poor little fellow!" gasped Nan, and sank to her knees to place
her cheek against the pale one of the little French boy.

"They--they're starving!" choked Bess Harley.

The woman seemed astonished by the emotion displayed by these two
schoolgirls. She looked from Nan to Bess in rather a frightened way.

"Monsieur, the conductor, s