“Hear that wind?” said Dr. McDonnell. “It sounds like a pack of wolves, the way it howls; and the snow means to keep on coming.”
“Yes, and stayin’,” answered the cow-puncher, nodding gravely at the stove.
“Not a nice night to go walking,” ventured the tenderfoot; “in fact, I think I’d rather be here. It’d take a bit to get me out—and Christmas Eve, too. As you say, doctor, the wind does sound like wolves; and no doubt if one were out they’d find the wolves—or the wolves find them.”
“No doubt whatever, young feller,” remarked the puncher, dryly. “Wolves are out this weather for grub; and when they’re out for grub they’re out on a business trip, dead sure.”
The doctor bit the end off a fresh cigar.
“Do you boys want a story?” said he.
“Go ahead, doc,” replied the cow-puncher, proffering a match. And the doctor, after lighting up, went ahead to the following effect.
Well, boys, it’s a long time ago now—a Christmas Eve, too—way back in the ’seventies, when things on the prairies were very different. It was usual in those days to get a brush with the Utes or the Cheyennes pretty regularly once or twice a month.
The twenty-third of December was a bright, sunny day, with not more than three or four inches of snow on the plains. Over the thin snow-crust galloped Jimmie Dink—“Darky Dink” we called him, because of his swarthy hair and skin.