ore the
previous day, Dallas and Marylyn had never seen it. It was with
exclamations of delight, therefore, that, crowding together in the
doorway, the three first caught sight of the glistening drifts.

"Pa, it's like a Christmas card," cried the younger girl. And,
bareheaded, she ran out to frolic before the shack.

To Dallas, the scene had a deeper meaning. Here was what would
discourage and block anyone who had put off necessary improvements! And
this would last long after the expiration of that six months! "I guess
there'll be no building or plowing _now_," she said to her father,
happily.

He, fully as relieved, returned a confident assent.

A little later, Old Michael, the ferryman, drove by, breaking a track
along the blotted road. His ancient corduroys, known to every river-man
from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats.
Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him
outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a
corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a
four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the
tailboard of the hindmost box.

On the arrival of the saloon gang, the pilot had left his steamboat in
the hands of his two helpers and made his way to Shanty Town. There, in
a shingle hut, perched atop a whisky cask, and kicking its rotund belly
complacently with his heels, he had wet a throat, long dry, from the
amber depths beneath him.

With each succeeding glass, his obligations had grown apace.
Nevertheless, for a lifetime of rough service had brought about an
immunity that belied his Celtic blood, his brain remained clear, his
step steady and his eye unbleared. Thus it happened that when, cut off
from grazing, it was necessary for the Shanty Town teams to be returned
at once to Clark's, Old Michael was on hand and in condition to take
them, and, by so doing, wipe out his drinking-account.

As he came opposite the shack, Marylyn was still running about in the
snow, while Dallas was sweeping out some long, narrow drifts that had
sifted in through window-and door-cracks. Squinting across at them, he
recalled, all at once, a heated conversation that had taken place at
Shanty Town the afternoon of the southward departure of a Dodge City
courier. And he shook his head sorrowfully.

"Ye'll have yer han's fule before long," he advised aloud, "or it's me
that's not good at guessin'." And,