of an inherent amiability that, he
fancied, were better concealed. And then I let supper usurp his brief
occupancy of my thoughts.

"Draw up, George," said Ross. "Let's all eat while the grub's hot."

"You fellows go on and chew," answered the cook. "I ate mine in the
kitchen before sun-down."

"Think it'll be a big snow, George?" asked the ranchman.

George had turned to reenter the cook room. He moved slowly around
and, looking at his face, it seemed to me that he was turning over the
wisdom and knowledge of centuries in his head.

"It might," was his delayed reply.

At the door of the kitchen he stopped and looked back at us. Both Ross
and I held our knives and forks poised and gave him our regard. Some
men have the power of drawing the attention of others without speaking
a word. Their attitude is more effective than a shout.

"And again it mightn't," said George, and went back to his stove.

After we had eaten, he came in and gathered the emptied dishes. He
stood for a moment, while his spurious frown deepened.

"It might stop any minute," he said, "or it might keep up for days."

At the farther end of the cook room I saw George pour hot water into
his dishpan, light his pipe, and put the tableware through its required
lavation. He then carefully unwrapped from a piece of old saddle
blanket a paperback book, and settled himself to read by his dim oil
lamp.

And then the ranchman threw tobacco on the cleared table and set forth
again the bottles and glasses; and I saw that I stood in a deep channel
through which the long dammed flood of his discourse would soon be
booming. But I was half content, comparing my fate with that of the
late Thomas Tucker, who had to sing for his supper, thus doubling the
burdens of both himself and his host.

"Snow is a hell of a thing," said Ross, by way of a foreword. "It
ain't, somehow, it seems to me, salubrious. I can stand water and mud
and two inches below zero and a hundred and ten in the shade and
medium-sized cyclones, but this here fuzzy white stuff naturally gets
me all locoed. I reckon the reason it rattles you is because it
changes the look of things so much. It's like you had a wife and left
her in the morning with the same old blue cotton wrapper on, and rides
in of a night and runs across her all outfitted in a white silk evening
frock, waving an ostrich-feather fan, and monkeying with a posy of lily
flowers. Wouldn't it make you look for your