con and canned Boston baked beans
and other such things. There was a little of the buffalo meat left,
and as I had kept it buried in the snow during the thaw it was still
as good as ever. This, with what eggs and other things in the hotel
which I had, I put on, covered it all snugly with a blanket, tied the
load firmly and was ready. I told Pike where I was going, though the
next moment I saw from the look on his face that I should not have
done so. Still, I could not see what harm he could do with his bruises
and broken leg. I left food and water where he could reach them, and
started out, walking beside Kaiser and helping him drag the load.

It was just noon when I got off. We went to the station and started
down the track. It was impossible to see more than a few rods, but the
wind, which all along had been in the northeast, had now shifted to
the northwest, so it was partly in my back. It was both snowing and
blowing, and we waded through the damp, heavy, new snow, and slipped
and stumbled over the old drifts. I soon saw that there was a big job
before us; and I had not expected any pleasure excursion.

The first accident was when I fell through between the ties over a
culvert up to my chin. It was too high to get back that way, so I went
on down and floundered out at the end and so fought my way back up. We
soon got used to these, and generally I told where they were by the
lay of the land, and either we went round them or walked carefully
over on the ties. But before I had gone three miles I saw that my only
hope of reaching the siding that night was in the wind going down; but
it was all the time coming up.

But we plodded on, in some places making pretty good time; but on the
other hand we often had to stop to rest. Kaiser seemed not the least
discouraged, and when we stopped even tried to wag his tail, but it
was too bushy a tail to wag well in such a wind. After a while the
blizzard became so blinding and the track so deep with snow that we
had to leave it and follow the telegraph poles on the edge of the
right of way, stopping and clinging to one pole till a little swirl in
the snow gave me a glimpse of the next one; then we would plunge ahead
for it, and by not once stopping or thinking I would usually bump up
against it all right; though when I had gone fifty steps if I did not
find it I would stop and stand still till a little lull made it so I
could see the pole, and then sometimes I would find that I h