, perhaps, that made him open at the story that
never grows old to American youth--Valley Forge. It was not a
great history, it had no brilliant and vivid style, but the
simple facts were enough for Dick. He read once more of the last
hope of the great man, never greater than then, praying in the
snow, and his own soul leaped at the sting of example. He was
only a boy, obscure, unknown, and the fate of but two rested with
him, yet he, too, would persevere, and in the end his triumph
also would be complete. He read no further, but closed the book
and returned it carefully to his pocket. Then he stared into the
fire, which he built up higher that the cheerful light might
shine before him.

Dick did not hide from himself even now the dangers of his
position. He was warm and sheltered for the present, he had
enough of the jerked buffalo to last several days, but sooner or
later he must leave his den and invade the snowy plain with its
top crust of ice. This snow might last two or three weeks or a
month. It was true that spring had come, but it was equally
true, as so often happens in the great Northwest, that spring had
refused to stay.

Dick tried now to see the mountains. The night was full of
brilliant moonlight, but the horizon was too limited; it ended
everywhere, a black wall against the snow, and still speculating
and pondering, Dick at last fell asleep again.

When the boy awoke it was another clear, cold day, with the wind
still blowing, and there in the northwest he joyously saw the
white line of the mountains. He believed that he could recognize
the shape of certain peaks and ridges, and he fixed on a spot in
the blue sky which he was sure overhung Castle Howard.

Dick saw now that he had been going away from the mountains. He
was certainly farther than he had been when he first met the
Sioux, and it was probable that he had been wandering then in an
irregular course, with its general drift toward the southwest.
The mountains in the thin, high air looked near, but his
experience of the West told him that they were far, forty miles
perhaps, and the tramp that lay before him was a mighty
undertaking. He prepared for it at once.

He cut a stout stick that would serve as a cane, looked carefully
to the security of his precious sun glass, and bidding his little
den, which already had begun to wear some of the aspects of a
home, a regretful farewell, started through the deep snow.

He had wrapped