ing sun. We huddled down as
near as possible to the hot bricks. We took turns driving, one of us
wrapped up, head and ears beneath the heavy robes.

On that whole journey we did not meet a soul. We were frozen stiff and
had to have our hands thawed out in cold water when we reached Presho.

A homesteader living ten miles out stepped into the land office while we
were there.

"Don't you girls know enough to stay at home on a day like this? I
didn't dare attempt it until I saw you go by. I said to the family,
'There go the Ammons girls,' so I hitched up and started. And here it is
28 below zero."

The land commissioner said, "Well, you can't depend on the Ammons girls
as a thermometer."

And the storms came.

[Illustration]

XI

THE BIG BLIZZARD

Several miles from Ammons a bachelor gave a venison dinner on his claim
to which a little group of us had gone. About noon it clouded up and no
barometer was needed to tell us that a big storm was on the way. As soon
as we had eaten we started home.

The sky was ominous. Antelope went fleeting by; a little herd of horses,
heads high, went snorting over the prairie. Coyotes and rabbits were
running to shelter and a drove of cattle belonging to the Phillips ranch
were on a stampede. One could hear them bawling madly.

The guests had gone to the dinner together in a big wagon and were
delivered to their respective shacks on the way back. We raced the
horses ahead of the storm for a mile or two, but it was upon us by the
time we reached Margaret Houlihan's. As we drove on up the draw to the
settlement we saw the chimney of our cabin, consisting of a joint of
stovepipe (the regulation chimney in this country) go flying across the
prairie. And there was not an extra joint of pipe on the place--probably
not one on the reservation, which meant that we would not be able to
build a fire in the house until we could go to Presho or the state
capital for a joint.

"Hey, whata you goin' to do," exclaimed the young neighbor boy who had
taken us to the dinner. "You can't live in your shack through the storm
that's comin' without a fire."

"We have a monkey-stove in the store," Ida Mary told him. He shook his
head, but before hurrying home he scooped up a few buckets of coal we
had on hand and took it into the store, and watered and fed the horses,
knowing we might not be able to reach them until the blizzard had
passed. "That all the fuel you got?" he demanded.

"A sett