Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp; Or, The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne by Alice B. Emerson
CHAPTER XI
STALLED, AND WITHOUT A DOCTOR
The rapidity with which the storm had increased and the drifts had filledthe cuts through which the rails were laid was something that none of theparty bound for Mountain Camp had experienced. Unless Uncle Dick beexcepted. As Betty said, Mr. Richard Gordon had been almost everywhere andhad endured the most surprising experiences. That was something thathelped to make him such a splendid guardian.
"Yes," he agreed, when Betty dragged him down the car aisle to the twosections which he had wisely abandoned entirely to his young charges, "wehad considerable snow up there in the part of Canada where I have beenthis fall. Before I came down for the Christmas holidays there was aboutfour feet of snow on the level in the woods and certain sections of therailroad up there had been entirely abandoned for the winter. Horse sledsand dog sleighs do all the transportation until the spring thaw."
"Oh, do you suppose," cried Libbie, big-eyed, "that we may be snowbound atMountain Camp so that we cannot get back until spring?"
"Not a chance," replied Uncle Dick, laughing heartily. "But it does lookas though we may have to lay by for a night, or perhaps a night and a day,before we can get on to Cliffdale, which is our station."
"In a hotel!" cried Betty. "Won't that be fun?"
"Perhaps not so much fun. Some of these country-town hotels up here in thewoods are run in a more haphazard way than a lumber camp. And what you getto eat will come out of a can in all probability."
The boys groaned in unison at this, and even Betty looked woebegone.
"I wish you wouldn't talk about eating, Uncle Dick. Do you suppose we willcatch up with that dining car?"
"I do not think we shall. But there is an eating room at the junction weare coming to. We can buy it out. I only hope there will be milk to be hadfor the little folks. There is at least one baby aboard. It's in the nextcar."
"But we'll get to this place we're going to by morning, shan't we?" criedBobby, very much excited.
"We're two hours late already I understand," said Mr. Gordon. "We havelittle to fear, however I fancy if the storm does not hold up they willnot try to push past the junction until morning. We've got to sleep in thecar anyway; and if we are on short rations for a few hours it certainlywill do you boys and girls little harm. At Cliffdale----"
"Oh, Uncle Dick!" suddenly exclaimed Betty, "that is where Mr. Bolter hassent that beautiful black horse that he bought in England."
"Oh, indeed? I heard of that mare. To Cliffdale? I believe there is astockfarm there. It is some distance from my friend Canary's camp,however."
"Do you suppose that girl got there?" whispered Bobby to Betty.
"Even if she did, how disappointed she must be," Betty rejoined. "I amawfully sorry for Ida Bellethorne."
"I don't know," said Bobby slowly. "I've been thinking. Suppose she didfind your beautiful locket and--and appropriate it for her own use,"finished Bobby rather primly.
"You mean steal it," said Betty promptly. "No. I don't think she did. Shedidn't seem to be that sort of person. Do you know, the more I think ofher the more I consider that Mrs. Staples would be capable of doing that."
"Oh, Betty! Finding and keeping your locket?"
Betty nodded with her lips pursed soberly. "I didn't like that woman," shesaid.
"Neither did I," cried Bobby, easily influenced by her friend's opinion."I didn't like her a bit."
"But, of course, we don't know a thing about it," sighed Betty. "I do notsuppose we should blame either of them, or anybody else. We have noevidence. I guess, Bobby, I am the only one to blame, after all."
"Well, don't mind, Betty dear," Bobby said comfortingly. "I believe thelocket will turn up. I told Daddy and he will telephone to the stores oncein a while and see if it has been found. And, of course, we have noparticular reason to think that you dropped it in Mrs. Staples' shop."
"None at all," admitted Betty more cheerfully. "So I'll stop worryingright now. But I would like to know where Ida Bellethorne is in thisblizzard."
"Girl or horse?" chuckled Bobby.
"Girl. I fancy that little cockney hostler, or whatever he is, will lookout carefully for the mare. But who is there to care anything about poorIda?"
Gradually even Betty and Bobby were convinced that there were severalother matters to worry about that were connected with neither IdaBellethorne the girl nor Ida Bellethorne the horse. The belated trainfinally got to the junction where there was an eating place. But anothertrain had passed, going south, less than an hour before and the lunchcounter had been swept almost bare.
Uncle Dick and Major Pater were old travelers, however; and they werefirst out of the train and bought up most of the food in sight. Others ofthe passengers purchased sandwiches and coffee and tea to consume at once.Uncle Dick and the military man swept the shelves of canned milk andfruit, prepared cocoa and other similar drinks, as well as all the loavesof bread in sight, a boiled ham complete, and several yards offrankfurters, or, as the Fairfields folks called them, "wienies."
"We know what Mrs. Eustice and Miss Prettyman would say to suchprovender," said Louise when the party, the boys helping, returned withthe spoils of the lunch-room. "How about calories and dietetics, and allthat?"
"We may be hungry enough before we see a regular meal in a dining-car or ahotel to forget all about such things," Uncle Dick said seriously. "There!We are starting already. And we're pushing straight into a blizzard thatlooks to me as though it would continue all night."
"Well, Uncle Dick," Betty said cheerfully, "we can go to bed and sleep andforget it. It will be all over by morning of course."
Uncle Dick made no rejoinder to this. They had a jolly lunch, getting hotwater from the porter for their drink. Bob and the Tucker twins prettynearly bought out the candy supply on the train, and the girls feltassured that they were completely safe from starvation as long as thecaramels and marshmallows held out.
By nine o'clock, with the train pushing slowly on, the head locomotiveaided by a pusher picked up at the junction, the berths were made up andeverybody in the Pullman coach had retired.
Betty, as she lay in her upper berth with Libbie, heard the snow, orsleet, swishing against the side and roof of the car, and the sound lulledher to sleep. She slept like any other healthy girl and knew nothing ofthe night that passed. The lights were still burning when she awoke. Not agleam of daylight came through the narrow ground-glass window at her head.And two other things impressed her unfavorably: The train was standingstill and not a sound penetrated to the car from without.
Libbie was sound asleep and Betty crept out of the berth without awakeningthe plump girl. She got into her wrapper and slippers and stole along theaisle to the ladies' room. Nobody as yet seemed to have come from theberths.
She could not hear the wind or snow when she got into the dressing room.This convinced her at first that the storm was over. But she dropped oneof the narrow windows at the top to see out, and found that a wall ofhard-pack snow shrouded the window. She tried to break through this driftwith her arm wrapped in a towel. But although she stood on a stool andthrust her arm out to her shoulder, her hand did not reach the open air!
"My goodness me!" gasped Betty Gordon. "We're stalled! We're snowbound!What shall we ever do if the snow doesn't melt pretty soon, or they don'tcome and dig us out?"
She washed in haste, and having brought her clothes with her, she dressedpromptly. All the time she was considering what was to be done if, as itseemed, the train could not go on.
Just as she opened the door of the dressing room excited voices sounded atthe end of the car. The conductor and the porter were talking loudly. Theformer suddenly shouted:
"Ladies and gentlemen! is there a doctor in this coach? We want a doctorright away! Day coach ahead! Child taken poison and must have a doctor."
A breathless gabble of voices assured him that there was no physician inthe coach. He had already searched the other cars. There was no doctor onthe train.
"
Betty was terribly shocked at this speech. She wriggled past the conductorand the troubled porter, and ran into the car ahead. At first glance shespied the little group of mother and children that was the center ofexcitement.