er car and cut my sleeper out at
Fracroft--we were bucking the drifts about four miles an hour; it
seemed to fill in behind about as fast and as thick as we were cutting
it out in front. It all drifted in behind as soon as we stopped, the
conductor tells me."

The girl made polite acknowledgment and referred to her two companions.

"What shall we do with ourselves, then?"

"Cribbage, Harriet? You and I?" Avery invited.

She shook her head. "If we have to play cards, get a fourth and make
it auction; but must it be cards? Isn't there some way we can get out
for a walk?"

CHAPTER VI

THE HAND IN THE AISLE

The man whose interest in the passenger in Section Three of the last
sleeper was most definite and understandable and, therefore, most
openly acute, was Conductor Connery. Connery had passed through the
Pullmans several times during the morning--first in the murk of the
dawn before the dimmed lamps in the cars had been extinguished; again
later, when the passengers had been getting up; and a third time after
all the passengers had left their berths except Dorne, and after nearly
all the berths had been unmade and the bedding packed away behind the
panels overhead. Each time he passed, Connery had seen the hand which
hung out into the aisle from between the curtains; but the only
definite thought that came to him was that Dorne was a sound sleeper.

Nearly all the passengers had now breakfasted. Connery, therefore,
took a seat in the diner, breakfasted leisurely and after finishing,
went forward to see what messages had been received as to the relieving
snow-plows. Nothing definite yet had been learned; the snow ahead of
them was fully as bad as this where they were stopped, and it would be
many hours before help could get to them. Connery walked back through
the train. Dorne by now must be up, and might wish to see the
conductor. Unless Dorne stopped him, however, Connery did not intend
to speak to Dorne. The conductor had learned in his many years of
service that nothing is more displeasing to the sort of people for whom
trains are held than officiousness.

As Connery entered the last sleeper, his gaze fell on the dial of
pointers which, communicating with the pushbuttons in the different
berths, tell the porter which section is calling him, and he saw that
while all the other arrows were pointing upward, the arrow marked "3"
was pointing down. Dorne was up, then--for this was the arrow denoting