ooked pleasant and happy, he inquired at the desk as to
the possibilities of reaching Yimville.

He loitered and whistled and hummed while the clerk phoned to the
station.

"All right," said the clerk, smiling as if bestowing glad news. "Line up
that way will be clear by noon. Wires are down, but that doesn't matter
to you, I know. You're still in luck!"

Jimmy's hopes went smash, and resignedly he turned away. He was in for
it, and was too conscientious to deliberately lie to his firm about the
impossibility of getting through. Promptly on time for his train he was
at the station and checked his baggage through to the "next jump," thus
relieving himself of impediments on this diplomatic side step of his to
Yimville. He boarded the train, but finding no one who looked very
approachable, and feeling eager for companionship, walked through its
entire length of three coaches, without discovering a single person he
had ever seen. Indeed, the coaches were nearly empty, as if traffic
were badly disrupted. The train caught up with a snow plow working
through great drifts in a cutting, and had to wait Jimmy got out and
watched proceedings with great interest. There was something fascinating
about the way those two locomotives drew back and then charged the snow
drifts furiously, and stirred up a miniature storm of white. Also, the
storm had ceased, and once the sun broke through for a few minutes.
Jimmy was glad for this, because now that a storm could no longer work
in his favor, he preferred everything to clear up. Sunshine fitted his
temperament. It was a good old sun, after all!

He did not even complain when his train arrived at Yimville a full hour
late. He had never been there before. It was a pretty place, he thought,
with its white hills all around it, and its red station under a roof
that looked to be made of white stuff three feet in thickness, and a
town omnibus with fat driver who waddled importantly, and a half dozen
loafers drawling comments. He was the sole passenger to descend and was
starting toward the omnibus when accosted by a man in a full coat who
said, "This way, sir. Mr. Wetherby couldn't come to meet you, as he is
makin' a talk up there now. We wasn't any too sure you'd get here, on
account of this plaguey snow fall, but he sent me down to make sure that
if you did you'd get to the court house on the jump. Right around the
corner of the depot is our old bob sled."

"That was decent of Wetherby. Ha