Page:Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp.djvu/119

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AN ALARM
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Forward they saw a thin stream of smoke rising into the air from the stack of the front locomotive. The fires in the pusher were banked. It was not an oil-burner, nor was it anywhere near as large a locomotive as the one that pulled the train.

Rearward they could scarcely mark the roadbed, so drifted over was it. Fences and other landmarks were completely buried. The bending telegraph poles, weighted by the pull of snowladen wires, was all that marked the right of way through the glen.

"What a sight!" gasped Betty. "Oh, Bobby! did you ever see anything so glorious?"

"I never saw so much snow, if that is what you mean," admitted the Virginia girl. "And I am not sure that I really approve of it."

But Bobby laughed. She had to admit it was a great sight. It was now mid-afternoon and all they could see of the sun was a round, hazy ball behind the misty clouds, well down toward the western horizon which they could see through the mouth of this cut, or valley between the hills. At first they beheld not a moving object on the white waste.

"It is almost solemn," pursued Betty, who possessed a keen delight in all manifestations of nature.

"It looks mighty solemn, I admit," agreed Bobby. "Especially when you remember that any-