cheerless and desolate in the extreme. Our
party consisted of three (or I should say four, for the Elam Storm whose
name has so often been mentioned was to have shown up two days
before)--Uncle Ezra Norton, who was a sheep-herder in a small way during
the summer, and an untiring hunter and trapper in winter; Ben Hastings,
whose father, an officer of rank in the regular army, was stationed at
the fort fifty miles away; and myself, Carlos Burton, a ne'er-do-well,
who--but I will say no more on that point, as perhaps you will find out
what sort of a fellow I am as my story progresses. We were comfortably
sheltered in our valley home, but we heard all the noise of the tempest
and felt a good deal of its force; and accustomed as I had become to
such things during my wild life in the far West, I did not forget to
breathe a silent but heart-felt prayer for any unfortunate who might be
overtaken by the storm before he had time to reach the shelter of his
cabin.

Under our humble roof there were warmth, comfort, and supreme
contentment. The single room of which the cabin could boast was
brilliantly lighted by the fire on the hearth, which roared back a
defiance to the storm outside; its rough walls of unhewn logs were
heavily draped with the skins of the elk, blacktail, and mountain sheep
that had fallen to our rifles during the hunt, completely shutting out
all the cold and damp and darkness; and Ben and I, with our moccasoned
feet thrust toward the cheerful blaze, reclined luxuriously upon a pile
of genuine Navajo blankets, while our guide, friend, and mentor, Uncle
Ezra Norton, sat upon his couch of balsam sending up from his pipe
clouds of tobacco incense that broke in fleecy folds against the low
roof over our heads. Our minds were in the dreamy, tranquil state that
comes after a good dinner and a brief season of repose following a
period of toil and hard tramping that had been rewarded beyond our
hopes.

Uncle Ezra was a typical borderman, strong as one of his own mules, and
grizzly as any of the numerous specimens of _Ursus ferox_ that had
fallen before his big-bored Henry. Although he took no little pride in
recounting Ben's exploits to the officers of the garrison, he was very
strict with the boy when the latter was under his care, and never
permitted him to wander far out of his sight if he could help it.

Uncle Ezra was my particular friend, and had won my undying gratitude by
his kindness to me. I was in trouble a