So all that winter he and Gus cut and split, while Rennie hauled and Turkey looked after the house and the feeding. And so all through the cold weather they made cordwood. It did not make up for the loss of the steers, but it helped, and he was able to send money to Jean.
The long winter passed. The days lengthened and the sun mounted higher, so that it was warm on the south side of house and barn and stack. The snow went in a glorious, booming Chinook wind that draped the ranges with soft, scudding clouds, and set every gulch roaring with waters. The ground thawed, and earth-smells struck the nostrils again. Up against the washed blue of the sky flocks of geese bore their way northward. One morning they heard the liquid notes of a meadow-lark. Then came robins and bluebirds, and a new season opened with a rush.
CHAPTER VII
THE FRENCHES AGAIN
That spring Angus kept three teams going steadily on plows and disks while the high winds dried the soil to a powder, raising dust clouds that choked and blinded, so that they came in black and gritty to a shower bath of Angus' invention. He had accomplished this by a primitive water wheel operated by the swift water of the irrigation ditch back of the house. The water was always cold, and invigorated accordingly. But it was icy in the morning. Rennie tried it once and gave it up, while big Gus scornfully refused to experiment with a morning bath.
"It'll brace you up," Turkey urged.
"Vatter ent brace nobody," Gus replied with contempt. "Dees all-over vash by mornin' ban no good. Ay ent need him. It ent make me dirty to sleep."
But the dust vanished with the spring rains, and the grain sprouted in the drills. One day the fields lay bare and bald and blank; and the next, as it seemed, they were covered with a film of tender green. Then all hands began to clear and repair the irrigation ditches, so that when dry weather came the fields should have water in plenty.
So the early summer came and with it Jean's holidays. Her return, Angus recognized, necessitated some preparation.