a frightful storm.
Believing that we should all perish if we continued the ride all night,
and Rhodes, the guide, agreeing with me--upon his informing me that his
brother had a ranch only a mile or two off the road, directions were
given to him to head for the ranch by the shortest line so that we could
secure the needed shelter-- After a fearful struggle over several miles
of an open stretch of prairie, breasting into the teeth of one of the
worst blizzards ever recorded in Texas, we reached the ranch, the men
and horses almost exhausted, and completely coated with ice-- The ranch
proved to be a low, one story log house, with several out-buildings--a
ramshackly horse shed and corn crib-- It was midnight-- Several dogs
announced our approach, and Rhodes aroused his brother-- Ordering the
men to unsaddle, blanket the horses with their saddle blankets, and to
"tie in" under the "lee" of the buildings, the men to occupy the horse
shed--Rhodes, the Corporals and the writer stalked into the shelter of
the "shack"-- There was but one room with a large stone fire place--
Rhodes piled on the logs-- The room had two beds in it-- He and the
writer, stripping off our outer frozen clothes, and hanging them up to
dry in front of the blaze--occupied one bed--his brother, wife and
infant child were in the other, while the two Corporals, with several
large ranch dogs, curled up in their blankets on the open hearth-- It
was a "wild and wooly" night--when the baby wasn't crying the dogs were
sniffing, growling, whining or whimpering over being disturbed by such
an influx of strangers-- We wore out the night with little or no sleep--
When day broke it was found that the storm was still raging although the
wind had somewhat abated-- Feeding the horses liberally from Rhodes'
corn cribs, for which we paid him generously--and after a hasty
breakfast, we saddled up and started across the prairie to find the
road-- The country was one sheet of glare ice-- Our horses were smooth
shod-- At the road we met Sergeant Faber of Troop "A" with a small
detachment returning from some duty and going into Fort R. We learned
from him that the deserters had been seen the night before in
Weatherford, which was but a few miles away-- We skated, slid and
floundered along through the ice crust, a horse going down now and then
until we reached a creek about one-half mile from W---- when the command
halted and was placed in bivouac, concealed by heavy chaparral--
C