falls of snow, though in our sheltered Basin the heat
of the sun was still sufficient to clear off most of it again, and the
frost had been sharp enough to freeze up our creek at its sources, so
that our little waterfall was now converted into a motionless icicle.
Fortunately, we were not dependent upon the creek for the household
supply of water: we had one pump which never failed in the back kitchen
and another one down by the stables.

The creek having ceased to run, the surface of the pool was no longer
agitated by the water pouring into it, and very soon it was solidly
frozen over with a sheet of ice twelve inches thick, when, according to
our yearly custom, we proceeded to cut this ice and stow it away in the
ice-house; having previously been up to the sawmill near Sulphide and
brought away, for packing purposes, several wagon-loads of sawdust,
which the sawmill men readily gave us for nothing, being glad to have it
hauled out of their way. We had taken the opportunity to do this when we
took our loads of oats up to Sulphide, thus utilizing the empty wagons
on the return trip.

The pool, as I have said, measured about a hundred feet each way, though
on account of its shallowness around the edges we could only cut ice
over a surface about fifty feet square. Being frozen a foot thick,
however, this gave us an ample supply for all our needs.

The labor of cutting, hauling and housing the ice fell to Joe and me, my
father having generally plenty of other work to do. He had taken in a
number of young cattle for a neighboring cattleman for the winter, and
having sold him the bulk of our hay crop and at the same time undertaken
to feed the stock, this daily duty alone took up a large part of his
time. Besides this, "the forty rods" having become passable, the
freighters and others now came our way instead of taking the longer
hill-road, and their frequent demands for a sack, or a load, of oats,
and now and then for hay or potatoes, added to the work of
stock-feeding, kept my father pretty well occupied.

Joe and I, therefore, went to work by ourselves, beginning operations on
that part of the pool nearest the point where the water used to pour in.
We had taken out ten or a dozen loads of beautiful, clear ice, when, one
day, Yetmore, who was riding down to San Remo, seeing us at work,
stopped to watch us.

He was a queer fellow. Though he must have been perfectly well aware
that we distrusted him; and though, after