milk for nawthin', if ye want it so bad. Bein' here all night, I expect
ye be purty sharp-set, the whole on ye."

Mr. Carter had picked up the cans and had gone forward to have the milk
thawed out at the boiler fire. Some of the brakemen had cleared away the
snow by now and there was an open passage to the outside world. The keen
kind blew in, and the pale, wintry sunshine lighted the space between the
baggage cars. Mr. Snubbins grinned in his friendly way at the two girls.

"I reckon you gals," he said, "would just like to be over to my house
where my woman could fry you a mess of flap-jacks. How's that?"

"Oh, don't mention it!" groaned Bess.

"Is your house near?" asked Nan.

"Peleg's the nighest. 'Tain't so fur. And when ye git out on top o' the
snow, the top's purty hard. It blew so toward the end of that blizzard
that the drifts air packed good."

"Yet you broke through," Bess said.

"Right here, I did, for a fac'" chuckled the farmer. "But it's warm down
here and it made the snow soft."

"Of course!" cried Nan Sherwood. "The stale air from the cars would
naturally make the roof of the tunnel soft."

"My goodness! Can't you see the train at all from up there?" Bess
demanded. "Is it all covered up?"