The Coming of Cassidy-And the Others

youth, also knew that there was always room for one more. Perhaps that explains his sarcasm, for, as h

o, he is. It never gets cold nowhere else on earth. Ain't it terrible to be so ignorant?" He glanced at the bunkhouse, into which Johnny had gone for dry clothing. "So I ain't never seen no cold weather?" he mused thoughtfully. Snapping his fingers irritably, he whee

ne-hand phrase of the sign language that is universally known, which Red returned with a chuckle. "Wish he 'd been here th' time God took a hand in a big gam

it frequent hits us goin' over th' fence, with both feet off th' ground. Anyhow, that Northe

Arrow with two hundred head. When th' aforementioned agitation was over they had less 'n one hundred. We lost a lot of cows, too; bu

ll is no place for a camp, even in th' summer; an' what got us was th' idea of campin' at all in th' winter. It riled Buck till he forgot to cross off three days on th' calendar, which we later discovered by help of th' almanac an' th' moon. Buck sends Hoppy over to scout around Split Hill. You know Hoppy. He scouted for two days without bein' seen, an' without discoverin' any lawful an' sane reason why twelve hard-lookin' fellers should be campin' back of Split Hill in th' winter time. He also found they had c

ive miles to th' Peak an' north from it twenty-five miles along th' east line. There was a hundred thousan' acres in Conroy Valley an' thirty thousan' in th' Meeker triangle, which made up Section Two. At that time mebby ten thousan' cows was on this section-two-thirds of all of 'em. When we built Number Three on th' Peak this se

ber Two; an' me an' Buck an' Hoppy took life easy in th' bunkhouse, with th' cook to feed us. Buck, he scouted

alo robe behind our saddles, cussin' th' size of 'em under our breath. I 've got th' short ride that day, an' Buck says he 'll wait for me to come back, after which we 'll scout around Medicine Bend. He 's still worried abo

ny fair plan will work once. They only wanted one day-after that it would be a runnin' fight, with eight or nine of 'em layin' back to hold us off

live until after dark. They learned that with sorrow, an' pain. An' they shore was het up about it. Ace Fisher, ridin' along th' west line from Number One, was dropped from ambush. Two more rustlers lay back of Medicine Bend lookin' for any of us that might ride dow

et to get him. He wanted that sassy devil more 'n he wanted money just then, so he starts after it. Mr. Gray Wolf leads him a long chase over th' middle of th' range an' the

ot all of a sudden. Cowan looks at his thermometer, which Jimmy later busts, an' says she has gone down thirty degrees since dayli

but what's three miles out here? It's got a lot colder than it was when I was at Cowan's, an' while I 'm debatin' about it th' wind dies out. I look up an' see that th' slate-covered blanket has traveled fast. It's 'most over my head, an' th' light is gettin' poor. When I look down ag

hen there 's a roar an' I 'm 'most unseated by th' wind before I can get set. I did n't know then that it's goin' to blow that hard for three days, an' it's just as well. It's full of ice-li'l slivers that are sharp as needles an' cut an' sting till they make th' skin raw. I let loose of th' robe an' tie my bandanna around my face, so my nose an' mouth is covered. My throat burns already almost to my lungs. Good Lord, but it is cold! My hands are stiff when I go back for th' robe, an' it's

I begin to see things an' get sleepy. Cows an' cayuses float around in th' air, an' I 'm countin' money, piles of it. I get warm an' drowsy an' find myself noddin'. That scares me a li'l, an' I fight hard ag'in it. If I go to sleep it's all over. It keeps gettin' worse, an' I finds my eyes shuttin' more an' more frequent, an' more an' more frequent thinkin' I don't care, anyhow. An' so I drifts along pullin' at th' bottle till it's empty. That should 'a' killed me, then an' there-but it don't even make me real drunk. Mebby I spilled some of

h' snow an' ice is whirlin' under it because of a sort of back draft, but th' wind don't hit so hard. He 's fightin' that cayus

ter for drink; so if he can make th' cave he 's safe. He 's more worried abou

eet! They're gropin' for their guns when a sudden gust of wind whirls down from th' top of th' hill, pilin' snow an' ice on 'em till they can't see nor breathe. An' a couple of old trees come down to make things nicer. Hoppy is blinded, an' when

wder loose in it an' along th' barrel. Usin' his cigarette papers for tinder he gets th' fire started an' goin' good an' is feelin' some cheerful when he remembers th' three rustlers driftin' south. They was bound to hit a big arroyo that would lead 'em almost ag'in' Number Two's do

s to make us less! It's one thing to stand up an' swap shots with a gunman; but it's another to turn yore back on a cave an' a fire like that an' go out into what is purty nigh shore death on a long chance of helpin' a couple of friends that was able to take care of themselves. That's one

o by now. He 's purty near asleep when he thinks he hears a shot. He fights his cayuse again, but can't stop it, so he falls off an' lets it drift, an' crawls an' fights his way back to where that shot was fired from. G-d only knows how he does it, but he falls over a cow an' sees Lanky huggin' its belly for th' li'l warmth i

t one fallin' an' then th' other. But they keep fightin' like th' game boys they are, neither givin' a cuss for himself, but shore obstinate that he 's goin' to get th' other out of it. That's our spirit; an' we 're proud of it, by G-d! Hoppy wra

's plumb forgot his bad shoulder long ago. Purty soon he opens th' door again to shoot off th' gun, an' in streaks somethin' between his laigs. He slams th' door as he jumps aside, an' then looks scared at Lanky's sombrero! Mebby he's slow hoppin' outside an' diggin' them out of th' drift that's near covered 'e

ars in his eyes. Then he fills 'em with hot stew an' whisky, rolls 'em up together an' heaves 'em in th' s

was layin' when th' Norther strikes full force. It near blows him over, an', not havin' on nothin' but an old army overcoat that was wore out, th' cold gets him quick. He can't see, an' he can't hear Skinny's shots no more! He does th' best he can an' tries to fight back along his trail, but in no time there ain't no tracks to follow.

bunkhouse, an' it was three weeks before they could get out an' around, on

ke a new beginnin' an' start life fresh, with five years of burnin' matrimonial experience as his valuablest asset. Pete says he reckoned mebby he would n't have so many harness sores if he run single th' rest of his life; heretofore he 'd been so busy applyin' salve that he did n't have time to find out just what was th' trouble with th' double harness. Lots of men feel that way, but they ain't got Pete's unlovely

from his beddin', lifts me into th' waggin, puts most of his blankets around me, an' stops. Knowin' he can't save th' cayuses, he shoots 'em. That means grub for us, anyhow, if we run short of th' good stuff. Nobody but Pete could 'a' got th' canvas off that waggin in such a gale, but he did it. He busts th' arches an' slats off th' top of th' waggin an' use

n'. I remember freezin' to death, but that's all. An' just then I hears a faint voice say: 'He shore was dead.' I don't know Pete then, or that he talked to hisself sometimes. An' I reckon I was a li'l off in my head, at that. I begin to wonder if he means me, an' purty soon I 'm shore of it. An' don't I sympathize with myself? I 'm dea

th' herd an' shoved in my corral to wait for subsequent events. I felt sorry for him, an' lay there tryin' to figger it out, an' I 'm still figgerin' when it starts to get light. Th' other feller grunts an' sits up, bumpin

mps an' bumps his head again, an' looks at me close. 'D-d if you ain't a husky corpse,' he says. That settl

. 'They just shoved me in here an

il,' he grunts, lo

plies. 'I may be dead,

ow you keep quiet till I gets somethin' to eat,' an' he c

omes back with some hot coffee an' burned meat. I grab for

y G-d's quantity of snow. Th' drift over us is fifteen foot high, th' wind has died down, a

from th' cold, though, under all that snow an' with all th' blankets we had. When it stopped snowin' we discovered

was worried 'most sick an' as soon as we could, we got cayuses and star

Ace was missin'," he added. "We found him an'

lumb disgusted with travelin' in th' winter, an' had lost his cayuses, that when Buck offers him Ace's bunk he stays. An' he a