about two o'clock in the morning
That year , I was Assistant-Superintendent of the St. -- R.R. , and was returning on Christmas eve from the annual inspection of the line , in company with the General Manager of the road , in the private car `` St. Paul , '' when one of the worst blizzards I ever experienced , even in that prairie country , burst upon us , and in less than an hour , had buried the track so deeply that further progress was impossible . It was about midnight when the engine , fully five miles distant from a human habitation , and two hundred miles from our home , sulkily admitted the superior power of nature 's forces and hove to . Fortunately , for humanity 's sake , there were on our special -- which consisted of the engine , the baggage car , and our private car -- only five souls : Charles Fielding , the manager ; myself , William Thurlow ; Fred Swan , the conductor ; Joe Robbins , the driver ; and the hero of this history , Ovide Tetreault , the French-Canadian fireman . It was about two o'clock in the morning when we finally gave up all hope of getting along any farther , at least for some hours , and Fielding and I lay down in our berths with the hope that the storm would abate before daybreak , so that a snow-plough might reach us and clear the line , in time to enable us to reach our homes for the Christmas dinner . But as I lay awake and listened to the shrieks of the storm , the presentiment grew upon me that the chances of our spending the best part of Christmas Day in our contracted abode were depressingly promising . These thoughts , coupled with the knowledge that our car was but poorly provisioned , and that we were without a cook -- having let that functionary stop off for Christmas Day at the station beyond which we were stranded -- were in nowise conducive to my falling asleep more readily than was my wont . I awoke a little after eight o'clock , and was just about to hurry into my clothes to see what the weather was like , when I suddenly decided there was no need of any undue haste -- the roar of that festive wind could have been heard a mile away .