“This feller was jest crazy about his new thermometer. He was always lookin’ to see how cold it was or how hot it was. Once a norther come up in the night, and he jest had to git up and go look at his instrument. He struck a match so he could see, and the match jest froze, and he had to build a fire and warm it up before he could blow it out.”
“That might sound a bit windy to a feller that didn’t know the country,” said Joe, “but it’s probably so. I seen sunshine freeze right on the streets of Amarillo one time. Durin’ one of the long cold spells they had up there, all the chickens died for want of sleep. You see, they couldn’t tell when it was night, and the sunshine stayed froze so long they jest naturally died.”
“Speakin’ of things freezin’,” said Red, “I’ve seen words freeze. Once we was out in a blizzard cuttin’ drift fences, and tryin’ to point the herds to the canyons. And we’d yell and cuss the critters, but we couldn’t even hear ourselves. Well, sir, we finally got the brutes into the brakes and was on our way back when it started moderatin’. All of a sudden we heard the dangest mess of yellin’ and cussin’ and cow-bawlin’ that you ever heard tell of. Presently we recognized the very words we had spoke on the way down.”
“It seems to me,” said Lanky, “that I learned a story something like that from Addison and Steele.”
“Doubtless,” said Red, “doubtless you did. This that I was tellin’ about happened right over here on Addison and Steele’s outfit. I was workin’ for ’em at the time.”
“Yeah,” said Hank, “them northers come mighty sudden at times. One time Bill Anker and me rides up to a tank, and the day’s so warm and purty we decides to go in swimmin’. We was jest ready to strip off, when all of a sudden we notices the bullfrogs all along the dam jumpin’ out of the willows like bats shot out of a cannon. They hit the water all right and went under, but them critters got fooled that time. They poked out their heads like they always do; and there they was froze tight as a hat-band in the ice. All along the side of the tank for about ten feet from the dam, the ice was jest naturally speckled with frog heads.”
“That puts me in mind,” said Joe, “of a tale Bill Bishop used to tell. Bill said one time he started in swimmin’ and dove off of a high bluff into a deep hole of water. But jest as he was leavin’ the bluff, a drought come and dried up all the water. Bill thought shore he’d kill his self on the rock bottom of the creek-bed, but down comes a rise from a rain up above and fills up the hole jest in time to save him.”
“Lucky,” said Lanky.
“Yes,” said Joe, “I guess he was, yet not so powerful lucky, after all. Jest as he was stickin’ up his head, it got froze in the ice like them frogs Hank was tellin’ you about, and he had to stay there all day before the boys come and chopped him out. Leastwise that’s what he used to tell, but he was sech a damn windy that you never knowed when he was tellin’ the truth and when he was tryin’ to load somebody.”