ted over
a wide territory. Bye was in charge of the home bunch, and sat long
after the others had left, upon the new-formed mound in the ranch
dooryard.

Far over the broad, rolling prairies, as yet bare and frost-bound, the
sun shone brightly. A half-mile away he could see his own herd
scattered and grazing. The stillness after the sudden excitement was
almost unbelievable. Minutes passed by which dragged into an hour.
Over the face of the sun a faint haze began to form and, unnoticeable
to one not prairie-trained, the air took on a sympathetic feel, almost
of dampness. A native would have sensed a warning; but Calmar Bye, one
time writer, paid no heed. An instinct of his life, one he had thought
suppressed, a necessity imperative as hunger, was gathering upon him
strongly--the overwhelming instinct to portray the unusual.

Under its guidance, as in a maze, he made his way into the rough,
unplastered shanty. Automatically he found a pencil and collected some
scraps of coarse wrapping paper. Already the opening words of the tale
he had to tell were in his mind, and sitting down by the greasy
pine-board table, he began to write.

Hours passed. Over the sun the haze thickened. The whole sky grew
sodden, the earth a corresponding grayish hue. Now and anon puffs of
wind, like sudden breaths, stirred the dull air, and the short
buffalo grass trembled in anticipation. The puffs increased until
their direction became definite, and at last here and there big,
irregular feathers of snow drifted languidly to earth.

Within the shanty the man wrote unceasingly. Many fragments he covered
and deposited, an irregular heap, at his right hand. At his left an
adolescent mound of cigarette stumps grew steadily larger. A cloud of
tobacco smoke over his head, driven here and there by vagrant currents
of air, gathered denser and denser.

As the light failed, the writer unconsciously moved the rough table
nearer and nearer the window until, blocked, it could go no farther.
To one less preoccupied the grating over the uneven floor would have
been startling. Once just outside the door the waiting pony neighed
warningly--and again. Upon the ledge beneath the window-pane a tiny
mound of snowflakes began to take form; around the shanty the rising
wind mourned dismally.

The light failed by degrees, until the paper was scarcely visible,
and, brought to consciousness, the man rose to light a lamp. One look
about and he passed his hand over