On Saturday morning we found the ground covered with snow, and it was bitterly cold. It seemed as if this sudden change had come upon us opportunely to prevent our carrying away a too favourable impression of the climate. Truly, the day was a rough one, and we had to drive twelve miles across the prairie to Bozeman in a blinding storm of snow and sleet, and over a road smooth and level a week ago, but now full of holes and deep ruts up to the axles. Our progress through the sludgy snow was very slow.
I had hoped to make some calls in Bozeman, but the weather prevented my doing so.
We reached the station only just in time to catch the train for Helena, and we were not sorry to get under cover from the pitiless storm.
Now the time had arrived for saying goodbye to the boy I had gone so far to see, a great lump came into my throat as I thought of the years that may pass before we meet again; of his rough journey back, and of the poor little leaky shanty he had to winter in, and to which he had voluntarily exiled himself.
But for this taste of wintry weather, I should have left Frank's ranche with a more cheerful heart, yet with a false impression of the country and climate.
Unquestionably the life on a ranche such as Frank's is a rough and hard one, and I should be sorry if I have said anything throughout this narrative that might induce any aspiring youth to adopt a similar mode of life under a contrary impression. But for a young fellow who is willing to banish himself from all society and to work as Frank has done, I can certainly commend this country.
We left Bozeman in the afternoon for Helena and Garrison, the junction where we turn to the south on the Branch Line of the Union Pacific.
As I felt a special and peculiar interest in the beautiful Gallatin Valley, it was some disappointment to me that my latest view of it was in the midst of a heavy snowstorm. Our railroad route ran for thirty miles through this valley, and had the afternoon been clear, we might have caught a last glimpse of the little log cabin ten miles away up yonder, at the foot of the Eastern Hills.
At the head of the valley we came to "Gallatin City." Here "The Gallatin," "The Madison," and "Jefferson" rivers are lost in the great Missouri. After crossing the Missouri, the road passes down the Missouri Valley to Helena. No sooner had we got out of the valley than the storm cleared off, the evening sun shone out brightly, and by the time we arrived at Helena, just 100 miles from Bozeman, we found ourselves again in the same mild, genial atmosphere we had experienced previous to the storm. No snow had fallen at Helena.