for me in case of attack, but hard to find for other folks. One
I keep standing by my bed's head, but nobody would be apt to look
there for either gun or bed, I hope. I take in my drawbridge always
the minute I cross.

The last blizzard has helped me a good deal. The street is now so full
that the first-story doors and windows of the hotel and bank and most
of the other buildings are covered. Not a bit of daylight gets into
the hotel office, and I am writing this by lamplight, though the sun
is bright outdoors. The hotel can now only be entered by the back
door, which I have strengthened with boards and braces. I have also
boarded up the second-story windows, as they are now not much above
the level of the drifts.

My tunnel might now be much higher and I am going to make it so that I
can stand up straight all the way through. This is the only way there
is to get into the bank now, unless you were to pound off the planks I
have nailed over the upper windows, or shovel the snow away below. I
drew over lumber from the yard the day I had the team hitched up for
the coal. There are plenty of nails at Taggart's. The blacksmith tools
which would be good to break open a safe with I have buried in the
snow. I have not yet carried out the plan I told you about which might
save me in case the town is burned. It is a big job, but I am going at
it as soon as I can. There is much other work which I want to do.
There is a large tin keg of blasting-powder at Taggart's which it
seems as if I ought to use somehow. Sometimes I wish I had a cannon,
but I don't know as it would be much use to me.

I had a vast deal of work Monday and Tuesday carrying back the things
those savage Indians lugged out in the square. I fastened up all of
the buildings which they had torn open and straightened up things in
the stores as best I could. Fitzsimmons's was in the worst confusion,
and I could not do much with it. The cellar was such a wreck of
barrels and boxes and crates and everything you can think of, all
broken open and the things thrown everywhere, that I only looked down
and gave it up then and there.

As soon as I can get around to it I mean to build some more tunnels to
some of the other houses. I think I ought to draw up a list of regular
hours for getting up, fixing the fires, climbing the windmill tower to
look with the field-glass, and such-like things, as I used to hear
Uncle Ben tell was the way they did when he was in the army. I m