“Trains!  Ain’t any trains, and there won’t be.  There’s four slides between here and Keddie—­Lord knows how many there is from there on down.  Wires are all down, so they can’t get any word.  Nothing moving the other, way, either.  It’s the rain coming first, that softened things up, and then the weight of the snow pulled things loose.  Take your time about your breakfast,” he grinned.  “You’ll have quite a board bill before you get away from here.”

“Anybody starting out to hunt that girl?” the first speaker asked him.  “Can’t do much till the storm lets up, can they?”

“Well, if they wait till the storm lets up,” Barney retorted drily, “they might just as well wait till spring.  What kinda folks do you think we are, around here?  Forest Service started a bunch out already.  Bill Dunevant, he’s getting another party made up.”

“It’s a fright,” the second man declared, “I don’t know a darn thing about these mountains, but if somebody’ll stake me to a horse, I’ll go and do what I can.”

“When was it they brought word?”

“Fellow got down to the station about an hour ago and phoned in, is the way I heard it,” Barney said.  “He had to wait till the office opened up.”

Mrs. Singleton Corey laid her unused napkin on the table beside her unused knife and fork, and rose from her chair.  She had a feeling that this matter concerned her, and that she did not want to hear those crude men pulling her trouble into their talk.  With composed obliviousness to her surroundings she walked out into the office, quite ignoring the astonishment of the waitress who held Mrs. Singleton Corey’s butter and two biscuits in her hands by the table.  She waited, just within the office, until the man Barney sensed her impatience and returned from the dining room.

“I should like to go to a place called Toll-Gate cabin,” she told him calmly.  “Can you arrange for a conveyance of some kind?  I see that an automobile is out of the question, probably, with so much snow on the ground.  I should like to start as soon as possible.”

The man looked at her with a startled expression.  “Why, I don’t know.  No, ma’am, I’m afraid a rig couldn’t make it in this storm.  It’s halfway up the mountain—­do you happen to know the young lady that was lost up there, yesterday?”

“Has a young lady been lost up there?” The eyes of Mrs. Singleton Corey dwelt upon him compellingly.

“Yes, ma’am, since yesterday forenoon.  We just got word of it a while ago.  They’re sending out searching parties now.  She was staying at Toll-Gate—­”

“Is Toll-Gate a town?”

“No, ma’am.  Toll-Gate is just the name of a creek.  There’s a cabin there, and they call it Toll-Gate cabin.  The girl stayed there.”

“Ah.  Can you have some sort of conveyance—­”

“Only conveyance I could promise is a saddle horse, and that won’t be very pleasant, either.  Besides, it’s dangerous to go into the woods, a day like this.  I don’t believe you better try it till the weather clears.  It ain’t anything a lady had ought to tackle—­unless maybe it was a matter of life and death.”  He looked at her dubiously.