t. There was a red blanket rolled up
and tied on behind the saddle.

As I went by Townsend's I saw that the window I wanted to get to was
as full of holes as a skimmer, and I was glad the horse had blocked up
my way. I noticed that the depot wasn't much better off, however, for
holes. I went up the tower and watched the outlaws for half an hour.
They stopped a few minutes at Mountain's to get their extra horses and
then went on.

The wind was coming fresher all the time and I was pretty well chilled
when I got down. I was hurrying along across the drifts to the hotel
when I noticed the horse in the tunnel again. But his fine saddle and
bridle were gone. I knew instantly that it must be the work of my
unknown night visitor, who had not stolen anything for some time. This
was the first thing that had been disturbed by daylight; it was
growing bolder. My heart had behaved itself so well during the fight
that I had forgotten that I had such a thing; now it started to
thumping so hard that I thought it was all there was to me.

CHAPTER XVIII

After the Fight: also a true Account of the great Blizzard: with how I
go to sleep in the Stronghold and am awakened before Morning.

So that is the true history of the fight, just as it all happened at
Track's End, Territory of Dakota, on Saturday, February 5th; and thus,
through good luck and being well intrenched behind my fortifications,
and having plenty of Winchesters, I beat off the cutthroat outlaws and
held the town. If they had waited one day longer for their coming they
would have waited a good while longer; for the next day there came
such a blizzard as I had never seen before nor since, which roared
without ceasing six days, lacking twelve hours; and for two weeks more
the weather stayed bad, and seemed to have relapses, as they say of a
person sick. No robbers could have come through it, but the ones that
had come got back to their headquarters through the first of it, as I
have good reason to know.

And for almost six weeks after the fight I lived regularly and without
much disturbance, with Kaiser and the other animals for company by day
and the howling of the wolves and my own thoughts by night. If the
thoughts had given me no more trouble than the wolves I should have
been happy, for I think I had got so that I could not sleep unless
there was a wolf howling somewhere about in the neighborhood. The
loneliness, the dread of the outlaws coming back, the my