pull and the almost empty sled followed. In a
few minutes the edge of the timber was reached and Jack commenced to
scrape away the snow preparatory for a camp fire. The old trapper
decided it best to put coverings on the horses and turn them loose. It
was too stormy to picket them, too cruel to tie them up short, and
unless blankets were fastened on them they would make a bee line back to
Hot Sulphur.

When Jack had broken dry twigs from the ends of overhanging branches and
found a "blazed" spot on a pine tree which promised a good pitch-soaked
kindler, and gathered a lot of dead timber, he made ready to light his
fire. The wind drove the snow in avalanches. No one could ever light a
match in that gale, and when he reached the time for lighting, he found
but one match. He had lost his tin matchbox and the stock box was in the
"cache," which was by that time under two feet of snow. Carefully making
a little "lean to" out of a rubber blanket, he first "warmed" the match
against his flannel shirt up in the armpit, to absorb any dampness in
the sulphur, then with trepidation and fear he carefully drew the yellow
end across the inside of his duck coat, a crack, a choking cloud of
sulphur, a sputter of burning brimstone blue and feeble, then a stronger
yellow flame and the camp fire was assured. Throwing off the "lean to"
the wind drove the flames against the big pile of firewood and soon the
cheerful warmth melted a space in the snow big enough to call a camp. It
was no easy matter to cook supper, and there was little comfort standing
around afterwards, so both made ready for bed. The "lean to" was again
the resort for a shelter for the night, as a tent could not be made
secure in that storm in frozen ground.

Carefully fastening one end of the canvas to the wagon, and pegging the
other to the ground near the fire, a bed was improvised with the rubber
blanket next to the snow, then the blankets, eleven in all, the "lean
to" tucked in all around--and Jack went to sleep with the wind driving
its icy breath through the thick pine forest or shrieking as it caught
the naked, ghostlike branches of a leafless aspen. The morning found
them almost buried under the snow, but none the worse otherwise.

It was noon before the horses were found and brought back by the
trapper, and that evening the camp was pitched only a mile from the
other side of the "cache." The storm went down with the sun and the cold
intensified until the biting