good fire going
anyhow."

In the gulch they found a band of elk.

"Here's our supper an' our beds," Dud said.

They killed three.

While Bob gathered and chopped up a down and dead tree the others skinned
the game. There was dry wood in Harshaw's saddle-bags with which to start
a fire. Soon Dillon had a blaze going which became a crackling, roaring
furnace. They ate a supper of broiled venison without trimmings.

"Might be a heap worse," Dud said while he was smoking afterward before
the glowing pine knots. "I'm plenty warm in front even if I'm about
twenty below up an' down my spine."

Presently they rolled up in the green hides and fell asleep.

None of them slept very comfortably. The night was bitter, and they found
it impossible to keep warm.

Bob woke first. He decided to get up and replenish with fuel the fire. He
could not rise. The hide had frozen stiff about him. He shouted to the
others.

They, too, were helpless in the embrace of their improvised
sleeping-bags.

"Have to roll to the fire an' thaw out," Harshaw suggested.

This turned out to be a ticklish job. They had to get close enough to
scorch their faces and yet not near enough to set fire to the robes. More
than once Bob rolled over swiftly to put out a blaze in the snow.

Dud was the first to step out of his blanket. In a minute or two he had
peeled the hides from the others.

An hour later they were floundering through the drifts toward the cabin
on Wolf Creek. Behind each rider was strapped the carcass of an elk.

"Reminds me of the time Blister went snow blind," Harshaw said. "Up
around Badger Bend it was. He got lost an' wandered around for a coupla
days blind as a bat. Finally old Clint Frazer's wife seen him wallowin'
in the drifts an' the old man brought him in. They was outa grub an' had
to hoof it to town. Clint yoked his bull team an' had it break trail. He
an' the wife followed. But Blister he couldn't see, so he had to hang on
to one o' the bulls by the tail. The boys joshed him about that quite a
while. He ce'tainly was a sight rollin' down Main Street anchored to that
critter's tail."

"I'll bet Blister was glad to put his foot on the rail at Dolan's," Dud
murmured. "I'd be kinda glad to do that same my own se'f right now."

"Blister went to bed and stayed there for a spell. He was a sick man."
Harshaw's eye caught sight of some black specks on a distant hillside.
"Cattle. We'll come back after we've onloaded at the c