k to the shack. But in
the blindin' snow nothin' o' the house could be seen, an' though she
tried to fight up in that direction against the wind, she must have gone
past it a little distance to the left. They didn't find her until two
days after when the blizzard had blown itself out, an' there she was,
stone dead, not more than a half a mile away from the house.

"The boss was near crazy when they found her, an' he never was fit for
much afterwards. There was a child, only a little shaver then, who was
asleep in the house at the time his mother run out to answer the shout
she reckoned she heard. So, since the rancher wasn't anyways overstocked
on female relations, an' he had the kid to look after, the one-time boss
went out as a camp cook an' took the boy along. He was rustlin' the
chuck for this bunch I'm a-tellin' you about, that goes into the coulee.

"By 'n' by, a week or so afterward, a herd o' sheep comes driftin' into
this same valley, bein' ekally short for feed, an' the herders knocks up
a sort o' corral an' looks to settle down. The cowpunchers pays 'em an
afternoon call, an' suggests that the air outside the coulee is a lot
healthier for sheep--an' sheepmen--an' that onless they makes up their
minds to depart, an' to make that departure a record-breaker for speed,
they'll make their relatives sure a heap mournful. The sheepmen replies
in a vein noways calculated to bring the dove o' peace hoverin' around,
an' volunteers as a friendly suggestion that the cattlemen had best send
to town and order four nice new tombstones before ringin' the curtain up
on any gladiatorial pow-wow. When the cowpunchers rides back, honors is
even, an' each side is one man short.

"Now, this coulee, which is the scene of these here operations, is so
located that there's only one way out. Most things in life there's more,
but in this here particular coulee, the openin' plays a lone hand. As
the cattlemen got there first, and went 'way back to the end o' the
ravine, the sheepmen are nearer to what you might call the valley door.
If the cowpunchers could have made a get-away, it's a cinch that they'd
have headed for the ranch an' brought back enough men with them to make
their persuasion plenty urgent. But the herders ain't takin' any chances
of allowin' the other side to better their hand, an' when, one night, a
cowpuncher tries to rush it, they pots him as pretty as you please. The
cook, who's cuddlin' his Winchester at the time, f