ight to take it without
his license."

As he spoke, he placed himself beside the messenger. There was a
determination in his eye and manner that held the crowd back for a short
time.

"The chickens are mine," the messenger said; "I bought them on
speculation; they will spoil before I can get anywhere with them, and
they are now too late for Thanksgiving. You may have them for what I
gave."

"I will give five dollars towards paying for them"; and Samson Newell
drew out his pocket-book.

"Here's a dollar!" "I'll give a half!" "Count me in for two dollars!"
cried the crowd, favorably struck with the notion of paying for their
provender.

But one hulking fellow, with a large mock diamond in his shirt-front,
and clumsy rings on his coarse and dirty fingers, stepped forward and
said that he was a hungry man, that he had lost money by the----
company already, waiting a day and a night in that blamed snow-bank,
and that he was going to have a chicken,--or two chickens, if he wanted
them,--and he was decidedly of the opinion that there was no express
messenger on the train who would see the color of _his_ money in the
transaction.

Samson Newell was evidently a man of few words in a case of emergency.
He paused for only an instant to assure himself that the man was in
earnest, then he slid open one of the side-doors of the express-car, and
stretched forth a hand whose clutch was like the closing of a claw of
steel. He seized the bejewelled stranger by the coat-collar, shook him
for an instant, and dropped him,--dropped him into a soft snow-drift
whose top was level with the car-floor. Whether the unfortunate worked
a subterranean passage to one of the passenger-cars and there buried
himself in the privacy of a saloon is not known; he certainly was not
seen again till after relief came to the imprisoned train.

There was neither noise nor confusion in the matter of paying for and
dividing the poultry. Samson Newell had already made himself prominent
among the captive travellers. He had eaten nothing himself, that he
might the better provide, so far as his limited provision went, for his
wife and children; he had even gone through the cars with his scanty
luncheon of cakes and apples, and economically fed other people's little
ones, besides administering to the wants of an invalid lady upon the
train, who was journeying alone. He was, therefore, a favorite with all
on board. His action, enforcing payment for the provisio