The blizzard hung on for a day and filled the ravines with deep drifts, then the wind died and it settled down to a slow falling snow. There was more white mounds where that snow had covered the carcasses of dead critters, but amongst them mounds there was one that wasn't made by any of the bellering grass eating kind.—A big gray wolf layed there, a broke jaw had been the cause of his death.
(Some months later a cowboy run down and roped a three legged wolf and remarked as he looked close to where a front leg was missing, how "it must of been an awful wicked bullet to've took that leg off so neat.")
The already long winter dragged and hung on like it never was going to quit, snow was deep, and even tho the sun climbed higher and stayed longer there seemed to be no more heat from it than there'd been two months before and when it was at its lowest. The ponies was having a hard time and as the feed kept a getting to be harder to reach right along they was steady losing on weight and strength. The roundness that'd been theirs a few months before was all gone and instead they showed lean and slab sided.
Finally, and after it seemed there'd be no end to the rough weather there came a break, it turned warmer, and some time later the snow begin to sag and then melt on the sunny side of the hills, gradually, and after what seemed weeks instead of days the grass showed in plain sight more and more till the time come when the ponies didn't have to paw for their feed no more. Then after a while there was green stems showing thru the dry grass.—The dangers of the winter was over.
The range had turned from white to brown and then green and the little bunch of ponies begin to perk up considerable, the winter hair was a slipping, their eyes showed more bright, and pretty soon ribs begin to disappear under layers of fat and glossy hides. Then to make this new green world as great and wonderful as the winter before had been hard and cruel there begin to appear brand new little colts in the bunch, all slick little fellers and full of play. And as the bunch drifted to the open prairie they came acrost little calves, their little white faces a shining in the sun.
Smoky had more than kept with all the changes to the good, he showed it in every move he made, and as him and the old buckskin (which had got young again) played around and showed jealous over the new colts it made a sight that was complete in all that life could give.
There was months of peace that way, the little bunch roamed the prairies not at all seeming to care where sunup found 'em. Tall green feed was a plenty and everywheres, clear swift mountain streams slowed down on the flats and furnished moisture for the big cottonwoods that reached out in the sky and made cool shade, and as it was, time was just let slip by and enjoyed only as a free range horse with little colts for company can enjoy it.
It was more thru habit than heat that the little bunch drifted on up the foothills one day and then higher in the mountain. May be they liked the breeze up there better, or the change of feed, or maybe it was that too many riders had been showing up off and on and which kinda disturbed 'em.
But them riders couldn't be dodged that easy, and one day for a whole half hour there was one to within a half a mile of 'em a setting on his horse, field glasses in his hands and looking at the little bunch as they fanned themselves on a high ridge plum ignorant of the eyes that was on 'em.