he storm
lasts. But it's the dooty of the punchers to keep abreast of their
brands an' be thar the moment the blizzard abates.

"It's shore a spectacle! For a wild an' tossin' front of five hundred
miles, from west to east, the storm-beat herds comes driftin'. An'
ridin' an' sw'arin' an' plungin' about comes with 'em the boys on their
broncos. They don't have nothin' more'n the duds on their backs, an'
mebby their saddle blankets an' slickers. But they kills beef to eat as
they needs it, an' the ponies paws through the snow for grass, an' they
exists along all right. For all those snow-filled, wind-swept weeks
they're ridin' an' cussin'. They comes spatterin' through the rivers,
an' swoopin' an' whoopin' over the divides that lays between. They
crosses the Heart an' the Cannon Ball an' the Cheyenne an' the White an'
the Niobrara an' the Platte an' the Republican an' the Solomon an' the
Smoky an' the Arkansaw, to say nothin' of the hundreds of forks an'
branches which flows an' twines an' twists between; an' final, you runs
up on boys along the Canadian who's come from the Upper Missouri. An' as
for cattle! it looks like it's one onbroken herd from Fort Elliot to
where the Canadian opens into the Arkansaw!

"The chuck waggons of a thousand brands ain't two days behind the boys,
an' by no time after that blizzard simmers, thar's camp-fires burnin' an'
blinkin' between the Canadian an' the Red all along from the Choctaw
country as far west as the Panhandle. Shore, every cow-puncher makes for
the nearest smoke, feeds up an' recooperates; and then he with the others
begins the gatherin' of the cattle an' the slow northern drive of the
return. Which the spring overtakes 'em an' passes 'em on it's way to the
no'th, an' the grass is green an' deep before ever they're back on their
ranges ag'in.

"It's a great ride, says you? Son, I once attends where a lecture sharp
holds forth as to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. As was the proper
thing I sets silent through them hardships. But I could, it I'm disposed
to become a disturbin' element or goes out to cut loose cantankerous an'
dispootatious in another gent's game, have showed him the French
experiences that Moscow time is Sunday school excursions compared with
these trips the boys makes when on the breath of that blizzard they
swings south with their herds. Them yooths, some of 'em, is over eight
hundred miles from their home-ranch; an' she's the first an' only