on Ma
Snow's shoulder.

"I hear he aims to stay down there all winter alone and trap." Judge
Petty made the observation for the sake of conversation merely, as the
fact was as well known as that there were four feet of snow outside or
that the camp was "busted."

"And it's to his credit," Ma Snow snapped back. "When he's doin' that he
ain't runnin' up board bills he cain't pay."

"It's as good a place as any," admitted the Judge, "providin' he don't
go nutty." He raised his voice and added with a significant look at
Uncle Bill: "Bachin' alone makes some fellers act like a bull-elk that's
been whipped out of the herd."

"It takes about four months before you begin to think that somebudy's
layin' out in the brush watchin' you--waitin' to rob you even if you
haven't got anything to steal but a slab of swine-buzzum and a sack of
flour. The next stage," went on the citizen behind the stove speaking
with the voice of authority, "is when you pack your rifle along every
time you go for a bucket of water, and light you palouser in the middle
of the night to go around the cabin lookin' for tracks. Yes, sir,"
emphatically, "and the more brains you got the quicker you go off."

"You seemed about the same when you got back as when you left that time
you wintered alone on the left fork of Swiftwater," Ma Snow commented.

"Like as not you remember that spell I spent t'other side of Sheep-eater
Ridge when I druv that fifty foot tunnel single-handed into the Silver
King?"

"You've never give us no chance to forgit it," responded an auditor.
"We've heard it reg'lar every day since."

"I hadn't seen nobody fer clost to three months," Lemonade Dan continued
"when a feller come along, and says: 'I'd like to stop with ye but I'm
short of cash.' I counted out a dollar-thirty and I says 'Stranger,' I
says, 'that's all I got but it's yourn if you'll stay!'"

"And you'll jump for a new seed catalogue or an Agricultural Bulletin
like it was a novel just out," contributed Yankee Sam from his
experience. "I've allus been a great reader. I mind how I come clost to
burnin' myself out on account of it the fall of '97 when I was
ground-sluicin' down there on Snake river. I had a tidy cabin papered
with newspapers and one week when 'twere stormin' I got interested in a
serial story what was runnin'. It started back of the stove and they was
an installment pasted in the cupboard, they was a piece upside down
clost to the floor so I had to stan