"'Boys,' he says, 'for God's sake git up an' help me find my wife an' chillun.'
"An' then he told us he had been away from his ranch all the day before, at one of his sheep camps over on the Milky Holler. When he left in the mornin' his wife tole him she'd hitch up the hosses to the buckboard after dinner an' take the kids an' drive down to the railroad station an' git the mail, an' git back in time for supper. You know it's 'bout eight miles down to the station at Carrizo.
"Comin' home at night in the wust of the storm, Hart had found the shack empty, his wife not home yit an' the hosses gone. Thinkin' that the storm had kept 'em, he waited an hour or two, when he got so blamed oneasy he couldn't wait no longer, but saddled up his hoss an' drug it for the station. When he got there they told him his wife had left 'bout an hour by sun, an' they hadn't seen nothin' of her sence, although they had begged her not to start back, an' the wind a-blowin' like it was. 'Twas then about as dark as the inside of a cow, and leavin' the men at the station to foller him, Hart struck out across the prairie, ridin' in big circles, and tryin', but without no luck, to cut some 'sign' of the buckboard and hosses. You know, fellers, how them sandy mesas are about there, and, between the driftin' sand and the snow, every mark had been wiped out slick and clean. Then he pulled his freight for the ranch, thinkin' mebbeso she'd got back while he were away; but nary a sign of them was there about the place. He struck out agin, makin' big circles, and firin' his six-shooter and hollerin' like an Apache Injin, all the time a-listenin' an' a-prayin' fer some answer. Then he heerd our shots and thought sure he'd found her, fer she always carried a gun when she went out alone, and he jist hit the high places till he ran onto our camp and he war sure disappointed when he seen us an' not her.
"'Tain't no use for to tell you that we got a move onto ourselves. You've all seen the Cimarron Kid git a move on an' tear round and just bust hisself to get out to the herd in the mornin' to relieve the last guard, along in the fall when the boss was pickin' out men for the winter work. Well, that was the way we all tore round, an' as everybody kep' up a night hoss (you all know what a crank that feller Wilson was 'bout night hosses; he'd make every man keep one up if he had the whole cavyyard in a ten-acre field), we soon had a cup of coffee into us an' was ready to ride slantin'. Pore Hart was so nigh crazy that he couldn't say nothin', an' 'twas hard to see a big, strong feller as he was all broke up like.
"By this time 'twas gettin' daylight in the east an' we struck out, scatterin' every way, but keepin' in sight an' hearin' of each other. 'Bout two miles from camp I ran slap dab onto the buckboard, with one of the hosses tied up to the wheel, an' 'tother gone. The harness of the other hoss laid on the ground, an' from the sign, she had evidently unharnessed the gentlest hoss of the two, an' got on him, with the kids, an' tried to ride him bareback. I fired a couple of shots, which brought some of the other boys to me, an' we follered up the trail, step by step, 'cause 'twas a hard trail to pick out, owin', as I said, to the sand an' snow.
"Pretty soon we come to where she had got off the hoss an' led him for a ways; then we found the tracks of the kids; an' we judged they'd all got so cold they had to walk to git warm; an' all that time my fingers an' ears was tinglin' an achin', they was so cold, an' what was them pore kids an' that little woman goin' to do, when a big, stout puncher like me was shiverin' an' shakin' like a old cow under a cedar in a norther?
"Bimeby we struck the hoss standin' there all humped up with the cold, the reins hooked over a little sage bush. I sent one of the boys back with the hoss, an' tole him to hitch up to the buckboard an' foller on, fer I knowed shore we'd need it to put their pore frozen bodies on when we found 'em.
"Here we saw signs where she'd tried to build a fire, but, Lord A'mighty, you know how hard it is to find anything to burn round that there Petrified Forest country, an' she only had three or four matches, an' nothin' to make a fire catch with. Then she started on ag'in, an' I judged she'd got a star to go by, 'cause she kep' almost straight north to'ds the railroad. By the trail, she was a-carryin' the youngest kid, a boy 'bout two years old, an' leadin' the other, which was a little gal 'bout five.
"Right here, fellers, she showed she was fit to be the wife of a man livin' in such a country. She knowed mighty well that she'd be follered, an' that her trail would be hard to find, so what does she do but tear pieces out of the gingham skirt she had on, an' hang 'em along on a sage brush here, an' a Spanish bayonet there, so's we could foller faster. When we struck this sign an' seed what sh'd done, one of the boys says, says he, 'Fellers, ain't she a trump, an' no mistake?' An' so she shore was.
"We jist turned our hosses loose along here, an' one of us would lope ahead an' cut for sign, an' as soon as he found it, another would cut in ahead of him, an' in that way we trailed her up, right peart. We soon ran the trail down to the edge of the big mesa back of the Carrizo station.