while I 've
fixed up an extra bed for the other. I generally get out about
daybreak, but if that's too early for you, don't let my getting up
disturb you. And you fourth guard men, let the cattle off the bed
ground on a due westerly course and point them up the divide. Now get
to bed, everybody, for we want to make a big drive tomorrow."

CHAPTER XXIII

DELIVERY

I shall never forget the next morning,--August 26, 1882. As we of the
third guard were relieved, about two hours before dawn, the wind
veered around to the northwest, and a mist which had been falling
during the fore part of our watch changed to soft flakes of snow. As
soon as we were relieved, we skurried back to our blankets, drew the
tarpaulin over our heads, and slept until dawn, when on being awakened
by the foreman, we found a wet, slushy snow some two inches in depth
on the ground. Several of the boys in the outfit declared it was the
first snowfall they had ever seen, and I had but a slight recollection
of having witnessed one in early boyhood in our old Georgia home. We
gathered around the fire like a lot of frozen children, and our only
solace was that our drive was nearing an end. The two placermen paid
little heed to the raw morning, and our pilot assured us that this was
but the squaw winter which always preceded Indian summer.

We made our customary early start, and while saddling up that morning,
Flood and the two placer miners packed the beef on their two pack
horses, first cutting off enough to last us several days. The cattle,
when we overtook them, presented a sorry spectacle, apparently being
as cold as we were, although we had our last stitch of clothing on,
including our slickers, belted with a horse hobble. But when Flood and
our guide rode past the herd, I noticed our pilot's coat was not even
buttoned, nor was the thin cotton shirt which he wore, but his chest
was exposed to that raw morning air which chilled the very marrow in
our bones. Our foreman and guide kept in sight in the lead, the herd
traveling briskly up the long mountain divide, and about the middle of
the forenoon the sun came out warm and the snow began to melt. Within
an hour after starting that morning, Quince Forrest, who was riding in
front of me in the swing, dismounted, and picking out of the snow a
brave little flower which looked something like a pansy, dropped back
to me and said, "My weather gauge says it's eighty-eight degrees below
freezo. But I want