building; the tool house was used for storing the hand car and the
track tools, while the bunk house, a small, one-story building, formed
primarily the sleeping quarters, and secondly the social center of the
section crew, whose five roughly dressed men were only permitted to
enter the adjacent section house, where they boarded, at meal hours, as
the foreman's home was at all other times considered by them a sort of
hallowed spot. But the bunk house was their own, as within it they slept
at night in the wooden "bunks", which were nailed one adjoining the
other, all around the boarded walls, while in the center a small stove
in which a roaring fire was kept up, made things comfortable for the
inmates when they returned in the evenings after their day's work was
done, and all day every Sunday--their day of rest.

While the men were absent and I was yet unable to attend to my needs, a
sweet-faced lady looked after my wants and gave me my medicine. She was
the foreman's wife, and her ever cheering words with never a sign of
weariness that I, a sick and penniless harvester, should have so
unexpectedly become a charge upon her hands, were most grateful to me.

I made inquiries among the laborers and ascertained from their answers
that I was being cared for at the very section house that Peoria Red and
I had striven to reach during the howling blizzard. I tried to find out
what had become of my partner, but somehow they evaded my questions and
it was many days before I managed by slow degrees to learn from them the
facts concerning his absence.

During the height of the blizzard the foreman had ordered his crew out
and upon their hand car driven at a lively rate by the power of the wind
they had inspected every switch and car standing on sidings upon their
section, to assure themselves that everything was properly safeguarded.