"A wolf indeed!" cried Mr. Gordon, but beating off the animal good-naturedly. "He must be a friend of yours, Betty."
"Oh, dear me, he did scare us so!" Betty rejoined, getting up out of the drift, trying to brush off her coat, and petting the exuberant dog at the same time. "But it is a dear--and its master must be somewhere about, don't you think, Uncle Dick?"
Its master was, for the next moment he appeared at the top of the bank down which the "wolf" had wallowed. He hailed Uncle Dick and Betty with a great, jovial shout and plunged down the slope himself. He was a young man on snowshoes, and he proved to be a telegraph operator at that station three miles south.
"Wires are so clogged we can't get messages through. But we knew that Number Forty was stalled about here. Going to be a job to dig her out. I've got a message for the conductor," he said when he reached the top of the drift that was heaped over the train.
"Wasn't it a hard task to get here?" Mr. Gordon asked.
"Not so bad. My folks live right over the ridge there, about half a mile away. I just came from the house with the dog. Down, Nero! Behave yourself!"
"We are going to be hungry here pretty soon," suggested Mr. Gordon.
"There will be a pung come up from the station with grub enough before night. Furnished by the company. That is what I have come to see the conductor about."
"I tell you what," said Betty's uncle, who was nothing if not quick in thinking. "My party were bound for Cliffdale."
"That's not very far away. But I doubt if the train gets there this week."
"Bad outlook for us. We are going to Mountain Camp--Mr. Canary's place."
"I know that place," said the telegraph operator. "There is an easy road to it from our farm through the hills. Get there quicker than you can by the way of Cliffdale. I believe my father could drive you up there to-morrow."
"In a sleigh?" cried Betty delightedly. "What fun!"
"In a pung. With four of our horses. They'd break the road all right. Ought to start right early in the morning, though."
"Do you suppose you could get us over to your house to-night?" asked Mr. Gordon quickly. "There are a good many of us----"
"How many in the party?" asked the young man. "My name's Jaroth--Fred Jaroth."
