"I reckon they're lying," said Bucks, listening. "There's some deviltry up. They're not the kind to clear out for snow."
Hailey made no comment. Only looked thoughtfully at the ponies shambling along, the squaws trudging, the braves loitering to ask after the fire-water chief who slept under a cairn of stones off the right of way above the yard. Bucks didn't believe it. He could fancy rats deserting a sinking ship, because he had read of such things—but Indians clearing out for snow!
"Not for snow, nor for water," muttered Bucks, "unless it's fire-water." And once more the red man was misunderstood.
Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once in April; that is the foothills water: once in June; that is the mountain water. And the June rise is like this [left image]. But the April rise is like this [right image].
Now came an April without any rise; that April nothing rose—except the snow. "We shall get it all together," suggested Bucks one night.
"Or will it get us altogether?" asked Hailey.
"Either way," said Callahan, "it will be mostly at once."
May opened bleaker than April; even the trackmen walked with set faces; the dirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held. At last, while we looked and wondered, came a very late Chinook; July in May; then the water.