“But we didn’t get the million dollars, so hand out them blankets!”
“An’ I’ll trade with you,” said Silas, nodding to Fred.
Without another word of remonstrance the boys rolled up their clean, warm blankets, just as good now as the day they were purchased in San Francisco, in spite of the service they had seen, and handed them to the hunters, who gave them their own tattered and dirty army blankets in return. Although the boys could hardly bring themselves to touch them they did not refuse to take them, for they knew they would need them. The weather was cold, and it had been growing colder ever since they left the prairie. The wind came up the gorge in fitful gusts, whistling mournfully through the branches of the evergreens above their heads, and now and then the air was filled with flakes of snow. The storm which Dick Lewis had so confidently predicted had fairly set in, and some covering, besides the clothing they wore, was absolutely necessary.
“Now whar’s the cartridges fur these we’pons?” said Silas.
“We haven’t any,” replied Fred and Eugene; and to prove it they turned their pockets inside out.
“Didn’t you bring more’n one load with you?”
“One magazine full, you mean,” said Eugene. “Isn’t that enough? There were sixteen shots in one and fourteen in the other when we gave them to you—or rather when you took them. When those loads are gone you’ll have to skirmish around and find more.”
“An’ whar’s the ammunition fur these?” said Simon Cool, who now came up with a brace of revolvers buckled about his waist and carrying Archie’s Maynard in his hands.