t off two large chunks
of the meat and tied them to my saddle, then again shouldering the whole
thing I started on my way feeling almost as satisfied as if I had my
horse with me. I was lost two days, and two nights, after my horse left
me and all that time I kept walking packing my 40 pounds saddle and my
Winchester and two cattle pistols.

On the second night about daylight the weather became more threatening
and I saw in the distance a long column which looked like smoke. It
seemed to be coming towards me at the rate of a mile a minute. It did
not take it long to reach me, and when it did I struggled on for a few
yards but it was no use, tired as I was from packing my heavy outfit for
more than 48 hours and my long tramp, I had not the strength to fight
against the storm so I had to come alone. When I again came to myself I
was covered up head and foot in the snow, in the camp of some of my
comrades from the ranch.

It seemed from what I was told afterwards that the boys knowing I was
out in the storm and failing to show up, they had started out to look
for me, they had gone in camp during the storm and when the blizzard had
passed they noticed an object out on the prairie in the snow, with one
hand frozen, clenched around my Winchester and the other around the horn
of my saddle, and they had hard work to get my hands loose, they picked
me up and placed me on one of the horses and took me to camp where they
stripped me of my clothes and wrapped me up in the snow, all the skin
came off my nose and mouth and my hands and feet had been so badly
frozen that the nails all came off. After I had got thawed out in the
mess wagon and took me home in 15 days I was again in the saddle ready
for business but I will never forget those few days I was lost and the
marks of that storm I will carry with me always.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE OLD HAZE AND ELSWORTH TRAIL. OUR TRIP TO CHEYENNE. EX-SHERIFF PAT A.
GARRET. THE DEATH OF "BILLY THE KID". THE LINCOLN COUNTY CATTLE WAR.

Early the next spring 1878 we went on a short trip to Junction City,
Kan., with a small herd of horses for Hokin and Herst. We started out
from the home ranch early in April, stringing the herd out along the old
Haze and Elsworth trail. Everything went well until we were several days
out and we had went in camp for the night. The herd had been rounded up
and were grazing in the open prairie under the usual watch. And all the
cowboys except the first watch