But the sight of the railroad track heartened them. The strong-armed poles, with their humming wires, reached out hands of hope to them; and getting among the turkeys, they began to hurry them off the track and down the steep embankment, which fortunately offered them here some slight protection from the wind. But as fast as they pushed the birds off, the one-minded things came back on the track. The whole flock, meanwhile, was scattering up and down the iron rails and settling calmly down upon them for the night. They were going to roost upon the track! The railroad bank shelved down to the woods on each side, and along its whitened peak lay the two black rails like ridge-poles along the length of a long roof. In the thick half-light of the whirling snow, the turkeys seemed suddenly to find themselves at home: and as close together as they could crowd, with their breasts all to the storm, they arranged themselves in two long lines upon the steel rails. And nothing could move them! As fast as one was tossed down the bank, up he came. Starting down the lines, the boys pushed and shoved to clear the track; but the lines re-formed behind them quickly, evenly, and almost without a sound. As well try to sweep back the waves of the sea! They worked together to collect a small band of the birds and drive them into the edge of the woods; but every time the band dwindled to a single turkey that dodged between their legs toward its place on the roost. The two boys could have kept _two_ turkeys off the rails, but not five hundred. “The game is up, George,” said Herbert, as the sickening thought of a passing train swept over him. The words were hardly uttered when there came the _tankle, tankle_ of the big cow-bell hanging from the collar of the horse, that was just now coming up to the crossing! George caught his breath and started over to stop the horse, when, above the loud hum of the wires and the sound of the wind in the forest trees, they heard through the storm the muffled whistle of a locomotive. “Quick! The horse, Herbert! Hitch him to a tree and come!” called George, as he dived into the wagon and pulled out their lantern. “Those birds could wreck the train!” he shouted, and hurried forward along the track with his lighted lantern in his hand. It was not the thought of the turkeys, but the thought of the people on the flying Montreal express,--if that it was,--that sped him up the track. In his imagination he saw the wreck of a ditched train below him; the moans of a hundred mangled beings he heard sounding in his ears! On into the teeth of the blinding storm he raced, while he strained his eyes for a glimpse of the coming train. The track seemed to lie straightaway in front of him, and he bent his head for a moment before the wind, when, out of the smother of the snow, the flaring headlight leaped almost upon him.