Clint thought some of taking Smoky back with him and keeping him up for a winter horse, but then he'd have to turn him out when spring works came on, and the cowboy didn't want to think of going out on spring round up without his "top horse."
"No," he decided, "I'm going to let you run out this winter, but I'll be out to see how you're making it and don't loose too much tallow. You're getting to be too valuable a horse to take any chances of losing," he says to him as he scratched him back of the ear—"but," he went on, "you're not half as valuable to the outfit as you are to me, old pony, even tho Old Tom wont consider no price on you."
Clint was on his way back and had no more than got sight of the buildings of the ranch when Old White Winter hit him from behind and made him clap his gloved hands over his ears.
"Holy smoke," he whistled thru his chattering teeth, "she's sure starting ferocious."
And she had,—the first initiating blizzard of the season was more than just a snowstorm with a wind, it was a full grown blizzard drifting over the country, covering up the feed with packed snow, and freezing things up. It kept up for two days and nights, and as it cleared up, the thermometer went down. The next day Clint was busy bringing in old stock closer to the ranch and where they could be watched, and as another blizzard hit the country again a few days later that cowboy was kept on the jump bringing under the sheds and next to the haystacks all the stock he'd hunted up.
The next day Clint was busy bringing the weak stock closer to the ranch.
Clint was in the saddle all day every day, and sometimes away into the night. A month went by and in that time two feet of snow had accumulated on the range;—more was threatening to come, and all the cowboys that was kept on the Rocking R payroll more than had their hands full. The ranch hands would roll up their eyes at every bunch of stock the riders brought in to be fed, for as they figgered they already had all they could handle, and if this kept up, Old Tom would have to hire more hay shovelers and buy more hay.