t the gang's coming since
I had been so taken up with the tunnel. I had been so careless that I
might have been surprised twenty times a day.

It was a pleasant morning, and not very cold. Andrew had left behind a
pair of skees, or Norwegian snow-shoes--light, thin strips of wood,
four inches wide and eight or ten feet long--and, though I had never
been on them but once or twice, I determined to use them in going. I
fixed the fires well, made everything snug about town, gave the stock
in the barn some extra feed, put on my big overcoat, with a luncheon
in one pocket and Sours's revolver in the other, and started. Kaiser's
leg was still a little stiff, but I let him go along.

I think I fell down three times before I got out of town; it was as
many as this at least; and outside of town, there being more room, I
fell oftener. But I soon began to improve and get along better. I
decided to follow the railroad grade west, as it was most of the way
higher than the prairie, and the snow on it was smoother.

When I got opposite Mountain's I found the grade some ten or twelve
feet above the prairie, but it looked a very easy matter to slide
down on the skees. I had seen Andrew go down the steep side of
Frenchman's Butte. I accordingly slid, went wrong, fell, turned my
ankle, and found myself on the hard snow at the bottom unable to stand
on my feet.

I lay still some time thinking that perhaps my ankle might get better;
but it got worse. It was still almost half a mile to Mountain's, but
it was over two miles back to town. I felt that I might be able to
crawl the half-mile, so I started, with the skees on my back. I hope I
may never again have to do anything so slow and painful. Kaiser was
prodigiously excited, and jumped around me and barked and said as
plainly as words that he would like to help if he could. But, though I
thought a hundred times that I should never reach there, I kept
burrowing and floundering along and did accomplish it at last. It was
far past noon. The sky had clouded over. I saw a new letter behind the
board, but could not rise up to get it. I pushed open the door,
crawled to the heap of hay by the stove, and lay on it, more
miserable, it seemed, than ever before.

I scarcely stirred till I noticed that it was beginning to get dark.
Then I crept to the door and looked out; the snow was falling fast and
in big flakes. I shut the door and crawled back to the hay. There
seemed to be nothing to do. I kne