be. Conversation under those conditions was
not likely to become brisk.

"A fellow that'll punch cows for a living," Happy Jack asserted
venomously after a minute, "had ought to be shut up somewheres. He
sure ain't responsible. I betche next summer don't see me at it."

"Aw, shut up. We know you're feeble-minded, without you blatting it by
the hour," snapped Pink, showing never a dimple.

Happy Jack tugged again at his collar and made remarks, to which no
one paid the slightest attention. They rode in amongst the hills and
narrow ridges dividing "draws" as narrow, where range cattle would
seek shelter from the cutting blast that raked the open. Then, just as
they began to realize that the wind was not quite such a raging
torment, came a new phase of nature's unpleasant humor.

It was not a blizzard that descended upon them, though when it came
rolling down from the hilltops it much resembled one. The wind had
changed and brought fog, cold, suffocating, impenetrable. Yet such was
the mood of them that no one said anything about it. Weary had been
about to turn off a couple of men, but did not. What was the use,
since they could not see twenty yards?

For a time they rode aimlessly, Weary in the lead. Then, when it grew
no better but worse, he pulled up, just where a high bank shut off the
wind and a tangle of brush barred the way in front.

"We may as well camp right here till things loosen up a little," he
said. "There's no use playing blind-man's-buff any longer. We'll have
some fire, for a change. Mama! this is sure beautiful weather!"

At that, they brightened a bit and hurriedly dismounted and hunted dry
wood. Since they were to have a fire, the general tendency was to have
a big one; so that when they squatted before it and held out cold,
ungloved fingers to the warmth, the flames were leaping high into the
fog and crackling right cheerily. It needed only a few puffs at their
cigarettes to chase the gloom from their faces and put them in the
mood for talk. Only Blink sat apart and stared moodily into the fire,
his hands clasped listlessly around his knees, and to him they gave no
attention. He was an alien, and a taciturn one at that. The Happy
Family were accustomed to living clannishly, even on roundup, and only
when they tacitly adopted a man, as they had adopted Pink and Irish
and, last but not least important, Andy Green, did they take note of
that man's mood and demand reasons for any surliness.

"I