Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/84

72 took the bottle, and at each flash of lightning dropped a drop of hush medicine into the spoon, and when she had put in ten drops they gave it to the baby. That made twenty drops; it was dangerous, but it was sure death to all of them if the baby cried aloud.

The rain came in great sheets and with such force that it seemed that the car could hardly hold the rail. It was not a Pullman car; just a common red stock car standing on a siding, with a few armfuls of straw upon the floor. Occasionally Bankers turned to glance at the two women who were crouching in one end of the car, and when the lightning lit up their faces they were fearful to behold. Now the rain, cold as sleet, came through the cracks in the car and stung the faces of those within. Mrs. Bankers had seen three winters at Wood River, but her friend, the young woman who had come out to western Nebraska to teach school, was in every sense a tenderfoot, and the experience of this wild night had almost driven her mad.

"There they are," whispered Bankers. Now the women put their eyes to a crack, and when a flash came they could see a reef of feathered