her hen since. Kaiser and the cat and Dick and
Ned are all well and in good appetite. I have heard rather less of the
wolves of late, and I still think it would be easier to get the Man in
the Moon to come to this town than any of those Indians. But the
outlaws I still fear very much. Oh, something I ought to have written
you last week! I mean this: I got a letter from them that day out at
Mountain's, but I had no time to read it Christmas and the next day I
forgot I had it till after I had put your letter in the post-office.
This is what was in it:

CITISENS TRACK'S END,--We will Rob your bank and burn your town if
we don't get the small some we ask for. If adoing it we kill
anyboddy it wun't be our fawlt. Leave the Munny as we told you to
and save Bludd Shedd.

PIKE AND FRIENDS.

I look for them any time. My only hope is that the weather will be too
bad for them to travel; but of course there must be some good weather.
The snow is already so deep that it will be very hard for them to do
much on horseback. The street is full, and it is very deep north,
east, and south. The ground is almost bare for half a mile to the
west, however; and they could come in on the grade. Of course they can
come on snow-shoes at any time and go everywhere. I cannot even hope
to keep out of having trouble with them. I have made no answer to this
letter, and can't make up my mind whether it would be best to do so or
not.

I kept up work all the week on the fortifications, when the weather
would permit; for there has been another great blizzard, the worst of
the winter so far. I even worked all day yesterday, though it was
New-Year's. Monday morning I again started all of my fires, but I
found that in three of the buildings there was not enough coal to last
long. So I hitched up Ned and Dick on an old sleigh of Sours's and
took a good lot to each place from the sheds at the railroad. It was a
lucky thing I did so, too, because it snowed more Tuesday night and
began to blizzard Wednesday and kept it up till Friday without once
stopping; and it would now be impossible to drive anywhere near the
coal-sheds.

I have got up a plan to do what I want to do without using much coal;
I smother the fires, all except the one in the hotel, with stove
griddles laid on them, and it makes a great smoke without much fire.
The guns and ammunition I have disposed of here and there, in good
places