.
Uncle Dick and the military man swept the shelves of canned milk and
fruit, prepared cocoa and other similar drinks, as well as all the loaves
of bread in sight, a boiled ham complete, and several yards of
frankfurters, or, as the Fairfields folks called them, "wienies."

"We know what Mrs. Eustice and Miss Prettyman would say to such
provender," said Louise when the party, the boys helping, returned with
the spoils of the lunch-room. "How about calories and dietetics, and all
that?"

"We may be hungry enough before we see a regular meal in a dining-car or a
hotel to forget all about such things," Uncle Dick said seriously. "There!
We are starting already. And we're pushing straight into a blizzard that
looks to me as though it would continue all night."

"Well, Uncle Dick," Betty said cheerfully, "we can go to bed and sleep and
forget it. It will be all over by morning of course."

Uncle Dick made no rejoinder to this. They had a jolly lunch, getting hot
water from the porter for their drink. Bob and the Tucker twins pretty
nearly bought out the candy supply on the train, and the girls felt
assured that they were completely safe from starvation as long as the
caramels and marshmallows held out.

By nine o'clock, with the train pushing slowly on, the head locomotive
aided by a pusher picked up at the junction, the berths were made up and
everybody in the Pullman coach had retired.

Betty, as she lay in her upper berth with Libbie, heard the snow, or
sleet, swishing against the side and roof of the car, and the sound lulled
her to sleep. She slept like any other healthy girl and knew nothing of
the night that passed. The lights were still burning when she awoke. Not a
gleam of daylight came through the narrow ground-glass window at her head.
And two other things impressed her unfavorably: The train was standing
still and not a sound penetrated to the car from without.

Libbie was sound asleep and Betty crept out of the berth without awakening
the plump girl. She got into her wrapper and slippers and stole along the
aisle to the ladies' room. Nobody as yet seemed to have come from the
berths.

She could not hear the wind or snow when she got into the dressing room.
This convinced her at first that the storm was over. But she dropped one
of the narrow windows at the top to see out, and found that a wall of
hard-pack snow shrouded the window. She tried to break through this drift
with her arm wrapped in a towel.