oss the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted
behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their
saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of
stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling
at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along
the backward trail.

CHAPTER XIII

A SHOT IN THE DARK

Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the
seventeenth of January--the ranchers did not soon forget the date--a
warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the
morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches
had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change,
the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the
north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow
froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and
grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on,
cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a
myriad of tiny knives.

All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing
storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It
was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very
emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered
bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was
accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their
bunks, to fall asleep almost before they assumed the horizontal. The
other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why
his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they
could have learned one reason that day.

All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became
more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and
through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing
could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great
corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed
together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from
which projected a wilderness of horns.

The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking
many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the
light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown