s; and this knowledge contented Jones to
return to the lake, well satisfied that the herd would not be far away
in the morning, within easy striking distance by daylight.

At dark the storm which had threatened for days, broke in a fury of
rain, sleet and hail. The hunters stretched a piece of canvas over the
wheels of the north side of the wagon, and wet and shivering, crawled
under it to their blankets. During the night the storm raged with
unabated strength.

Dawn, forbidding and raw, lightened to the whistle of the sleety gusts.
Fire was out of the question. Chary of weight, the hunters had carried
no wood, and the buffalo chips they used for fuel were lumps of ice.
Grumbling, Adams and Rude ate a cold breakfast, while Jones, munching a
biscuit, faced the biting blast from the crest of the ridge. The middle
of the plain below held a ragged, circular mass, as still as stone. It
was the buffalo herd, with every shaggy head to the storm. So they
would stand, never budging from their tracks, till the blizzard of
sleet was over.

Jones, though eager and impatient, restrained himself, for it was
unwise to begin operations in the storm. There was nothing to do but
wait. Ill fared the hunters that day. Food had to be eaten uncooked.
The long hours dragged by with the little group huddled under icy
blankets. When darkness fell, the sleet changed to drizzling rain. This
blew over at midnight, and a colder wind, penetrating to the very
marrow of the sleepless men, made their condition worse. In the after
part of the night, the wolves howled mournfully.

With a gray, misty light appearing in the east, Jones threw off his
stiff, ice-incased blanket, and crawled out. A gaunt gray wolf, the
color of the day and the sand and the lake, sneaked away, looking back.
While moving and threshing about to warm his frozen blood, Jones
munched another biscuit. Five men crawled from under the wagon, and
made an unfruitful search for the whisky. Fearing it, Jones had thrown
the bottle away. The men cursed. The patient horses drooped sadly, and
shivered in the lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch-thick
casing of ice from his saddle. Kentuck, his racer, had been spared on
the whole trip for this day's work. The thoroughbred was cold, but as
Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that he knew the chase
ahead, and was eager to be off. At last, after repeated efforts with
his benumbed fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tie