Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/223

211 Soon the summer came with moonlight excursions to the mountains and boat rides on the star-lit lakes. They parted late at night only to meet again in the morning. The days, that were all too short, flashed by as mile-posts pass the window of an express train. In time the summer went out of the skies, the frost came and killed the flowers, but the summer stayed in their hearts and kept them glad.

It was winter without. The snow lay in deep drifts upon the pilots of locomotives that came down from the hills, and hid the tops of incoming freight trains. Miss Morgan stood at the window overlooking the yards. An old storm-stained work engine stood in front of the station, toil-worn and weary,—leaking like a sieve,—and the water, dripping through her fire-box, had frozen and hung icicles upon her very grates. Her driver, looking as rusty as his engine, was coming up the stair to tell the despatcher that he was not yet in and would not be for ten minutes, and the despatcher erased the arrival and put him in ten minutes later, so that the engineer might not