A dozen men, looking like amateur Esquimaux, and floundering up to their armpits at the first step, started off through the drifts. One of the train-men who knew the line of the road thoroughly, was sure they must be near a certain clump of trees where plenty of wood could be obtained. Taking the precaution to move in single line, one of the engineers, a broad-shouldered six-footer, leading the way, and steering by compass, they were soon out of sight. As they struck off at right angles to the track, Bob thought he recognized a face pressed close to the pane and watching them anxiously; but he could not be sure. Two hours later the men appeared once more, some staggering under huge logs, some with axes, some with bundles of lighter boughs for kindling. In another five minutes smoke was going up cheerily from the whole line of cars, for the trees had proved to be less than a quarter of a mile distant and the supply would be plentiful before night. When Bob Estabrook stamped into his own car, hugging up a big armful of wood, he was a different looking fellow from the trim young lawyer who was wont to stand before the jury seats in the Boston Court House. He had on a pair of immense blue yarn mittens loaned by a kindly brakeman, his face was scratched with refractory twigs, his eyebrows were frosted, his moustache an icy caret. The average tramp might well have hesitated before acknowledging kinship with him. His eye roved through the length of the car as it had that first night in the depot. She was not there. He was as anxious as a boy for her praise. “Guess I’ll take it into the next car,” he said apologetically to the nearest passenger; “there’s more coming just behind.” She was not in the second Pullman. Of course she wasn’t in the baggage car. Was it possible--? He entered the third and last car, recoiling just a bit at the odor of crowded and unclean poverty which met him at the door. Sure enough, there she sat--his idle, fashionable type of inutility--with one frowzy child upon the seat beside her, two very rumpled-looking boys in front, and a baby with terracotta hair in her arms. Somehow, the baby’s hair against the fur collar didn’t look so badly as you would expect, either. She seemed to be singing it to sleep, and kept on with her soft crooning as she glanced up over the tangled red locks at snowy Bob and his armful of wood, with a look in her eyes that would have sent him cheerfully to Alaska for more, had there been need. A few seats off, I ought to say, her father was talking kindly and earnestly to a rough-looking man and his wife, the latter of whom wore the dear old gentleman’s cloak. Fathers and daughters are apt to be pretty much alike in these things, you see. III.