Here was a facer for Mr. Lightfoot, and Jefferson Creede, to whom all eyes were turned in the crisis, smiled maliciously and let him sweat.
“Bill ain’t in very good voice to-night,” he observed at last, as the suspense became unbearable, “and we’re kinder bashful about singin’ to company, anyway. But if you want to hear somethin’ good, you want to git Bill goin’ about Coloraydo. Sure, Mr. Lightfoot is our best story-teller; and he’s had some mighty excitin’ times up there in them parts, hain’t you, Bill?”
Bill cast a baleful glance at his rival and thrust 247 out his chin insolently. His Coloraydo experiences were a matter of jest with Jeff Creede, but with the ladies it might be different. His courage rose before the flattering solicitude of Kitty Bonnair and he resolved then and there to fool Mr. Creede or know the reason why.
“Well,” he replied, stoutly, “they may look kinder tame alongside of your Arizona lies, but––”
“Oh, Mr. Lightfoot, do tell me all about it!” broke in Kitty, with an alluring smile. “Colorado is an awfully wild country, isn’t it? And did you ever have any adventures with bears?”
“Bears!” exclaimed Bill contemptuously. “Bears! Huh, we don’t take no more account of ordinary bears up in Coloraydo than they do of coons down here. But them big silver-tips––ump-um––excuse me!” He paused and swaggered a little on the precarious support of his cracker box. “And yet, Miss Bunnair,” he said, lowering his voice to a confidential key, “I slept a whole night with one of them big fellers and never turned a hair. I could’ve killed him the next day, too, but I was so grateful to him I spared his life.”
This was the regular “come-on” for Lightfoot’s snow-storm story, and Creede showed his white teeth scornfully as Bill leaned back and began the yarn.
“You see, Miss Bunnair,” began the Colorado cowboy, 248 rolling his eyes about the circle to quell any tendency to give him away, “Coloraydo is an altogether different country from this here. The mountains is mighty steep and brushy, with snow on the peaks, and the cactus ain’t more ’n a inch high out on the perairie. But they’s plenty of feed and water––you betcher life I wisht I was back there now instead of fightin’ sheep down here! The only thing aginst that country up there is the blizzards. Them storms is very destructive to life. Yes, ma’am. They’s never any notice given but suddenly the wind will begin to blow and the cattle will begin to drift, and then about the time your horse is give out and your ears frozen it’ll begin to snow!
“Well, this time I’m tellin’ about I was up on the Canadian River west of the Medicine Bow Mountains and she came on to snow––and snow, I thought it would bury me alive! I was lost in a big park––a kind of plain or perairie among the mountains. Yes’m, they have’m there––big level places––and it was thirty miles across this here level perairie. The wind was blowin’ something awful and the snow just piled up on my hat like somebody was shovellin’ it off a roof, but I kept strugglin’ on and tryin’ to git to the other side, or maybe find some sheltered place, until it was like walkin’ in your sleep. And that light fluffy snow jest closed in over me until I was 249 covered up ten feet deep. Of course my horse had give out long ago, and I was jest beginnin’ to despair when I come across one of them big piles of rocks they have up there, scattered around promiscus-like on the face of nature; and I begin crawlin’ in and crawlin’ in, hopin’ to find some cave or somethin’, and jest as I was despairin’ my feet fell into a kind of trail, kinder smooth and worn, but old, you know, and stomped hard under the snow. Well, I follers along this path with my feet until it come to a hole in the rocks; and when I come to that hole I went right in, fer I was desprit; and I crawled in and crawled in until I come to a big nest of leaves, and then I begin to burrow down into them leaves. And as soon as I had made a hole I pulled them leaves over me and fell to sleep, I was that exhausted.
“But after a while I had some awful bad dreams, and when I woke up I felt somethin’ kickin’ under me. Yes ’m, that’s right; I felt somethin’ kinder movin’ around and squirmin’, and when I begin to investergate I found I was layin’ down right square on top of a tremenjous big grizzly bear! Well, you fellers can laugh, but I was, all the same. What do you know about it, you woolies, punchin’ cows down here in the rocks and cactus?