"And when will another train pass here from San Francisco?"

"To-morrow evening, madam."

"To-morrow evening! But then it will be too late! We must wait--"

"It is impossible," responded the conductor. "If you wish to go,
please get in."

"I will not go," said Aouda.

Fix had heard this conversation. A little while before, when there
was no prospect of proceeding on the journey, he had made up his mind
to leave Fort Kearney; but now that the train was there, ready to start,
and he had only to take his seat in the car, an irresistible influence
held him back. The station platform burned his feet, and he could not stir.
The conflict in his mind again began; anger and failure stifled him.
He wished to struggle on to the end.

Meanwhile the passengers and some of the wounded, among them
Colonel Proctor, whose injuries were serious, had taken their
places in the train. The buzzing of the over-heated boiler was
heard, and the steam was escaping from the valves. The engineer
whistled, the train started, and soon disappeared, mingling
its white smoke with the eddies of the densely falling snow.

The detective had remained behind.

Several hours passed. The weather was dismal, and it was very cold.
Fix sat motionless on a bench in the station; he might have been
thought asleep. Aouda, despite the storm, kept coming out
of the waiting-room, going to the end of the platform,
and peering through the tempest of snow, as if to pierce
the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, and to hear,
if possible, some welcome sound. She heard and saw nothing.
Then she would return, chilled through, to issue out again
after the lapse of a few moments, but always in vain.

Evening came, and the little band had not returned. Where could they be?
Had they found the Indians, and were they having a conflict with them,
or were they still wandering amid the mist? The commander of the fort
was anxious, though he tried to conceal his apprehensions.
As night approached, the snow fell less plentifully,
but it became intensely cold. Absolute silence rested on the plains.
Neither flight of bird nor passing of beast troubled the perfect calm.

Throughout the night Aouda, full of sad forebodings, her heart
stifled with anguish, wandered about on the verge of the plains.
Her imagination carried her far off, and showed her innumerable dangers.
What she suffered through the long hours it would be impossible to describe.

Fix remained stationary in the same place, but did not sleep.
Once a man approached and spoke to him, and the detective
merely replied by shaking his head.

Thus the night passed. At dawn, the half-extinguished disc of the sun
rose above a misty horizon ; but it was now possible to recognise objects
two miles off. Phileas Fogg and the squad had gone southward;
in the south all was still vacancy. It was then seven o'clock.

The captain, who was really alarmed, did not know what course to take.

Should he send another detachment to the rescue of the first?
Should he sacrifice more men, with so few chances of saving those
already sacrificed? His hesitation did not last long, however.
Calling one of his lieutenants, he was on the point of ordering
a reconnaissance, when gunshots were heard. Was it a signal?
The soldiers rushed out of the fort, and half a mile off they
perceived a little band returning in good order.

Mr. Fogg was marching at their head, and just behind him were
Passepartout and the other two travellers, rescued from the Sioux.

They had met and fought the Indians ten miles south of Fort Kearney.
Shortly before the detachment arrived, Passepartout and his companions
had begun to struggle with their captors, three of whom the Frenchman
had felled with his fists, when his master and the soldiers hastened up
to their relief.

All were welcomed with joyful cries. Phileas Fogg distributed
the reward he had promised to the soldiers, while Passepartout,
not without reason, muttered to himself, "It must certainly be
confessed that I cost my master dear!"

Fix, without saying a word, looked at Mr. Fogg, and it would have
been difficult to analyse the thoughts which struggled within him.
As for Aouda, she took her protector's hand and pressed it in her own,
too much moved to speak.

Meanwhile, Passepartout was looking about for the train; he thought
he should find it there, ready to start for Omaha, and he hoped
that the time lost might be regained.

"The train! the train!" cried he.

"Gone," replied Fix.

"And when does the next train pass here?" said Phileas Fogg.

"Not till this evening."


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