are going to grub-stake him again this winter, are you, Uncle
Ezra?"

"Sure. I always do."

"What is the reason you won't let us go with him to the mountains?"

"'Cause I know that your folks aint so tired of you that they are ready
to lose you yet awhile; that's why."

"Only just a few days. We'll come back at the end of the week if you say
so, won't we, Carlos?"

"'Taint no use of talking, Ben; not a bit. Man alive! what would I say
to the major if anything should happen to you? And going off with Elam
Storm! That would be the worst yet."

"But Elam is honest and reliable. You have said so more than once, Uncle
Ezra."

"Oh, he's honest enough, as far as that goes, but shiftless--mighty
shiftless. And I never said he was reliable except in one way. He's
reliable enough to go to the mountains every fall and come back every
spring with a hoss-back load of peltries, and that's all he is reliable
for. I did make out to hold him down to the business of sheep-herding
for a couple of years, but then the roaming fever took him again and
nobody couldn't do nothing with him. He just had to go, and so he asked
for a grub-stake and lit out."

"You think that while he is in the mountains he looks for something
besides wolf-skins, don't you?"

"I know he does. He's got a fool notion that will some day be the death
of him, just as it has been the death of a dozen other men who tried to
follow out the same notion."

"You promised to tell me all about it some day, and about Elam, too; and
what better time can we have than the present? We are here by ourselves,
and there is no one to break in on your story."

"Well, then, I'll tell you if it will ease your minds any. It won't be
long, so you needn't go to settling yourself as though you had an
all-night's job before you to listen. And perhaps when I am done you
will know why I don't want you to go piking about the country with such
a fellow as Elam Storm."

It was just the night for story-telling and pipes. The blizzard, which
had been brewing for a week or more, had burst forth in all its fury,
and the elements were in frightful commotion. The wind howled mournfully
through the branches of the evergreens that covered the bluff behind the
cabin; the rain and sleet, freezing as they fell, rattled harshly upon
the bark roof over our heads; and the whole aspect of nature, as I
caught a momentary glimpse of it when I went out to gather our evening's
supply of fire-wood, was