Safe from the fury of the wind, we listened to it raging about the cabin as though cheated of its victims. And then, toward midnight, it died away. There was a hush as though the night were holding its breath, and then the sky cleared, the stars came out.
The next day Margaret's brother took up a sack of coal on his bronco, so we made our way back over the trail we had broken the night before, to the store, and he built a fire for us. Later that same morning Chris rode over with a sack of coal tied on behind the saddle.
"Yoost in case you should run out once," he said as he brought it in. "My wife she bane uneasy when she see no light last night."
When we told him what had happened he shook his head in concern and went to work. He scooped a path to the barn and attended to the horses. From under the snow he got some fence posts which he chopped up while Charlie excavated an opening to the front door—in case anyone should be mad enough to try to reach the store on a day like that.
About noon a cowboy came fighting his way through the drifts in search of lost cattle which the storm must have driven in this direction—the only soul who dared to cross the plains that day.
It was Sourdough. I never knew his real name. I doubt if those with or for whom he worked knew.
He stopped at the print shop to rest his horse, which was wringing wet with sweat, though the day was piercing cold. He threw the saddle blanket over the horse and came in.
We begged him to go and find out whether or not the Wagors were all right. After Ida Mary and I had got straightened out, it occurred to us that they had sent in their order for coal with ours. Like us they might be imprisoned in their shack and low on fuel; but, unlike us, there would be no question of their battling their way across the prairie to shelter.
"Sufferin' sinners," grumbled Sourdough. "Think I got time to fool around with homesteaders when a bunch of critters is maybe dead or starvin' to death? Godamighty!"
We argued and insisted, telling him that he knew better how to break a trail than the tenderfeet around here, that his horse was better trained for it.