HE train had been stalled in a drift for sixteen hours, while the snow-plow dug a path for it; and now with four huge engines pulling and one pushing, it labored up the steep slope to the top of the Divide. In the smoking-car a number of philosophers had passed the time of imprisonment in perfect good-humor. It became necessary to wear one's overcoat, but the larder had withstood so far the demands made upon it; there was plenty to eat, and almost everyone played cards. There was in fact but one marked exception; one man whom no one had even asked to take a hand at whist or poker. He stayed in the smoking-car to smoke, slowly and constantly, one good cigar after another. Now and then he exchanged a few words with one of his fellow-passengers, but they led nowhere; and he evidently preferred to sit silent in his chair, wrapped in his great coat, the dark fur collar of which made a frame for his striking head. He was a handsome man, of the type whose harsh lines and dark color are softened by the blanching touch of age. His crisp thick silvery hair, his heavy brows and black eyes, the clear-cut rigidity of his strong mouth, his straight stalwart shoulders, gave him a certain splendor of aspect. His loneliness, too, and silence, the immobility of his look, added to this rather grim distinction. He commanded notice, even though he might wish to avoid it. From the first day of the journey the negro porter had made him an object of special care; and the porter's attentions were the only ones welcomed by the solitary traveler. Evidently he liked comfort; and vaguely he liked its atmosphere about him now, in spite of his somber and unsocial mood.
The porter alone was informed of this gentleman's destination. To the surprise of the others he got off at a way-station nearly at the top of the Divide, a mere little clump of frame buildings half-buried in snow. His baggage too was taken off; but without any concern for this the tall man strode off the platform into the snow, and made his way to a low building a few rods distant, which was pointed out to him as the hotel, and which had its name, "Half-Way House," on a sign over the door. He was evidently expected; and the interest of the inhabitants, who were gathered on the platform or at the windows, was directed toward him rather than toward the belated train, which after a brief hall pulled out again into the darkness of the forest.
The stranger walked into the hotel and said to the man behind the bar:
"My name is Travis. You telegraphed to me from here."
"Yes, sir—yes, sir, one second," said the proprietor hastily. He finished pouring out the whisky for two customers who were staring at the newcomer, and then led the way into the parlor, an air-tight room across the narrow entry, where there was a hot coal-fire in a stove.
"I can have a room here for the night, I suppose—my baggage is coming over," said Mr. Travis.
"Yes, sir—wait one moment, I'll call my wife," said the hotel-keeper nervously. He seemed exceedingly relieved when he had delivered the newcomer into the hands of the small spare woman whom he called in from the kitchen, and could return to the bar. Mrs. Sprague assumed the charge he gave her with quiet dignity.
"You will want to go upstairs, Mr. Travis," she said. "Or perhaps you would rather see the lady first down here, for there's no fire up there."
"Let me go up, please," he said, rather huskily.
With his fur coat buttoned about him, his hat in his gloved hand, he followed the little woman up the flimsy creaking stairs into a narrow hallway with half a dozen pine doors on either side. One of these doors, at the end, she opened and closed silently after him.
He found himself in a small room, bitterly cold, lighted by a window of which the green shade was half-drawn down. As his heavy step sounded on the floor, a girl started up from the bed where she was lying, and a dark shawl that had covered her slid off on the floor, showing her light dress somewhat disordered. Travis barely noticed her. He came to the bedside and stood looking down on the body of his son.
A white coverlet hid all except the young face, thin from the ravages of mortal disease, but with a light color still touching the cheeks and lips. The long curving lashes, like a child's, gave a pathetic look to the handsome face, but there was no look of suffering. The face and the whole figure, slim and rigid under the coverlet, had the peace, the overpowering majesty, of death.