relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet
stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet
so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a
protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the
previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight
Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they
could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in
stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a
kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.

Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their
supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock
must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch
force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle
stockade--a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on
every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the
number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for
the future.

The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used
on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough
several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow
as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only
limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course
of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise,
the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed
due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.

For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them
eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back
and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they
vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons
were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the
afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a
gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid
contrast against the surrounding white.

The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out
behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one
foot ahead of the other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he
mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward
t