Doubt arose in the passenger’s mind. Somehow, it seemed that instead of going southeast towards Plumas we were making southwest for Neepawa, and that, after awhile, instead of being on the open prairie we should enter hilly, timbered country where the going would be more difficult, and direction impossible to maintain in the leaden gloom. To my doubts the farmer was indifferent, probably not being awake enough to appreciate what was said. After about three quarters of an hour I charged him with heading for Neepawa, and then he threw up his hands and confessed he knew not where we were. He was bidden to turn around the team, and let them go where they supposed their stable to be. After half an hour of this exhilarating travel I perceived a red light away to the east, and knew it to be the gleaming tail of the stricken train. We reached it at half-past one. I bade the farmer good morning, asked the conductor for his replenished kerosene lamp, requested him to stay with his train till another engine appeared, and started to walk the ties to Plumas. Nothing is comparable to a situation like that to make a man rely on his own resources, and to exalt meditation into a consoling art--especially when he finds himself exactly where Moses was when the light went out. Something special was in the conductor’s kerosene--the anti-freeze was frozen. After less than a mile’s walk the lamp was as functionless as the helpless engine. Stumbling along, I reached the bridge over the Jumping Deer River, the ties on which were covered with a perfect film of perfect ice. It was soon proved to a demonstration that the foot cannot say to the hand: “I have no need of thee.” I am not sure whether the feet and hands did not have to rely more on their neighbours, the knees, than was customary in most spheres of transportation. With the combined cumbrousness and comfort of a fur coat, fur cap, and mitts that would have done honour to Greenland’s Icy Mountains, the treacherous trestle was safely and thankfully negotiated; and the hope of Plumas flickered once more in a lonely human breast. Thanks to a pair of fairly long legs, and the remains of an Original Seceder’s faith in final perseverance, I made Plumas station at half past five, woke the agent, wired Portage, whence the Manitoba North Western superintendent sent an engine to Glenella, while I slept until noon in the hotel across the way. After twenty-seven years, the adventure looks rather entertaining from the meridian of King and Yonge. Then it was regarded as part of the evening’s work--a chore that might have to be done any day of the week--a commonplace which takes a long time to assume the hue of frosty romance.