trees like ripping
shot. At such times I was forced to turn my back, or to feel my way
blindly, head down. I moved with utmost caution lest I walk over a
cliff.

The time came when I had to abandon the wind-swept heights and flounder
through the soft snow of the canyons. Through narrow passes I had to
crawl, so terrific was the wind that poured through the channel like a
waterfall. Nothing short of a Kansas cyclone can match the velocity of
a mountain-top gale. All day I stemmed its tide, which sapped my
strength, bowled me over and cut my face.

As early darkness came on I reached a familiar canyon that dropped down
toward the valley where the ranch lay hidden. Drunkenly I staggered
homeward, too exhausted to care what happened. The last three miles
required three hours of heroic work. I became extremely weary and
wanted nothing so much as to sink down in the snow and go to sleep; but
I knew what that would mean, so I kept slapping and beating myself to
keep awake. In the end I reached the ranch, pounded upon the door and,
when it was opened, pitched headlong across its threshold.

The Parson gazed down at me from his six feet of height.

"Well," he said at length, "guess you found a pretty big world."

CHAPTER FOUR

DANCING ACROSS THE DIVIDE

So new was the life, so fascinating the animals and elements of the
primitive world, so miraculous was it that my lifelong dreams were come
true, that I never thought of home-sickness, nor missed the comrades
left behind me, although the Parson and his quiet wife were rather
elderly companions for a youngster. There were, too, the diversions of
going for the mail, either horseback or in the old spring wagon behind
the steady, little mountain ponies, the swapping of yarns while waiting
for the generally belated stage to dash up, its four horses prancing,
and steaming, no matter how cold the weather, from the precipitous ups
and downs of the mountain roads they had traveled. The return journey
in the dusk or by moonlight was never without incident: porcupine,
deer, bear, Bighorn, mountain lion--some kind of game invariably
crossed my trail.

And, as was true in all pioneer regions, the community abounded in
interesting personalities. During the first half of the nineteenth
century, the fame and fairness of the country had reached the centers
of Eastern culture, and had lured the ambitious and the adventurous to
try their skill in hunting and trapping and