at the fire.

"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.

"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.

"Are they all right?"

"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee,
and won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters you
ever saw. We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Bud
sent us along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back so
that the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"

"Yes, accidentally stumbled on to it. Bully place, and the womenfolks
are comfortably settled."

"Looks like it," grunted Ben, pointing to the north.

Ted looked in that direction and saw a spotted pony leaping toward them,
and above it a dash of scarlet. It was Stella, riding like the wind on
Magpie.

"Have any trouble with the critters in the night?" asked Ted.

"Did we? Well, I should howl. After you got under way they began to
drift before the wind. We fought them all night, and if we'd let them go
they'd been plumb into Colorado by this time. I don't want any more such
nights in mine."

"That was only a starter, my friend. That was a picnic compared to what
you may have to go up against before the daisies bloom again."

"Chuck!" yelled McCall, beating on the bottom of a griddle with a big
iron spoon.

The fellows left the fire in a hurry and, squatting in the snow with a
tin cup full of steaming coffee and a plate heaped with fried bacon and
griddle cakes, were soon too busy to remember their weariness.

Stella had ridden up, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling with
the frost and the exercise.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" she cried to Ted. "You're a mean thing.
Thought you'd leave me behind, but here I am." She made a little face at
Ted.

"I thought you'd rather stay indoors to-day on account of the cold,"
stammered Ted.

"Well, change your line of thought. There's going to be nothing to keep
me indoors in this country, and don't you forget it. If I've got to stay
indoors, I'll go South."

As soon as the boys had finished breakfast they were ready for another
day's work.

"Come on, fellows," shouted Ted. "Let's hurry to where the critters are,
and send the other boys back. Mac, cook up another breakfast for them."

They were in the saddle in a jiffy, and scurrying toward the south as
fast as their ponies could carry them.

Ted found the herd bogged in a shallow coulee that was filled to the top
with snow, i