The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-02-21

vnIIe nu uuIu uvrr anu over again 1or ruo
benefit of the curious passengers how ho
Fhanced to see the little one lying on the
fear platform.
/ The physician worked steadily over the
child for 10 or perhaps 90 minutes
shell do now" he said at last. Let
her sleep"
The porter, under Dickey's direction.
and with his dusky palm crossed with sill
YER made up an extra berth in the car. in
| which the child was laid. She was siecp-
ing the warm sleep of childhood. wrapped
in blankets and with Diczey's heavy over
| coat thrown across her feet The doctor
and the curious passengers had returned
| to their own berths, and the conductor
and his men had gone back to their wurl;
of seeing to the safety of the train. after
assuring the porter of the last car that he
would be held to no responsibility for the
passenger he carried without ticket or
berth check.
In the last sleeper little Dickey Culver
sat and smoked, while the child slept
peacefully in the luxury of a double lower
berth, and from the stateroom came the
steady snore Of the porter.
Dickey did not even doze in the night
for that was his day, and he was pulling
over how that child came to be upon the
platform. Certainly she had not been
there when the train left Medicine Bow.
for he had stood upon that platform him
self and watched the station out of sight,
and it had BEEN broad day then. The train
had stopped nowhere, and yet how absurd
1t was to suppose that the child had been
put there while the cars were in motion.
How could she have been-and who could
have done it: Even a Wyoming blizzard,
strong as it was, did not bear little girls
about on its wings and deposit them upon
the platforms of the sleeping cars for pas
sengers to pick up.
It was in the early gray of daylight
and the storm had spent its force when
the child woke
Il want my mamma" the little ono
said, smiling up into his face-tho sweet
smile of childhood just awakened
Here was dilemma. ''Where is your
mamma, little ono?" Dickey saba mans
laundering capacity for saying the wrong
thing.
''Why," she said don't you know? We
were going &c my papa in California, and
we rode n long ways, and we had no moro
money, and the man would not let us
ride. Then We walked, and I was tired
II was cold too. My mamma put me On
the steps and told me to be good but the
dark came, and it was cold, and so l OPEN
ed tho door. Then l could not open the
other door, and so l cried and went TO
sleep"
And where did mamma go, little ono?"
"Why, don't you know? She said she
WAS coming TOO"
DiCkey dropped the curtains of the berth
and went into the forward Car to look for
the conductor. Ono Of the curious passen-
gers Of the night before, an early riser
stopped him rs he went along, and pres
emily Il good woman, the curious passen-
gers wife, Went back into the last sleeper
and came out with the child III her arms
The matter was well known to ali the
women ON the train by this time, and rs
women will, from mysterious receSses of
handbags and satchels they drew enough
material to make the child prcscnFable in
no time at all. She was a pretty child
enough, with dimpled cheeks and blue
eyes and golden hair, and she told her
story, all she knew of it, over and over
again to whoever asked her, but there was
Il quiycr in the warm, rcd lips now when
she asked for her mamma.
Diciley in the. meantime had found the
conductor. The train stopped at Green
River anyway, and that was only few
miles farther on
When the station was reached, Dickey
and the trainnea Jumped down from the
rear platform OF the last sleeper and pocred
under the trucks. What with snow and
the Cinders, they could see nothing at first,
but presently the brakeman muttered u
curse and Crawled under the car. The
Others followed. There, on top of the
trucks, wedgCd III SO hard and fast that it
was amazing how shG had ever sevoton into
such I! position, was the body Of 4 woman.
OF courSo it WAS frozen stiff. Nothing
that lives can survive the blizzard that
sweeps across the Laramie plains. And
upon the body was no scrap of paper Civ
ing the faintcst c!"w to her name
Dickey told the boys about it ut the
Green Shades on the first night after ho
came home. They were drinking hot
punches tai the time-Diokcy and Fes>cn-
den ard the third assistant-and the third
assistant called for another and shiVercd
and swore in his beard that he would
adopt the little girl.
why no, " said Dicl<ey, you cannot
do that exactly either. She camo to Cali
fornia To find her father, and 1 propose
that she shall find him"
Bat how
"Ihat, my dear fellow, is a story not
yet told. san Francisco Bulletin.