It was near noon the next day when Clint showed up at the ranch packing a little calf on the front of his saddle. He found Jeff by the big sheds where the cattle was sheltered and fed, and told him:
"I had to leave this little feller's mammy out about ten miles. There's another cow and young calf with 'er, and maybe you better send a man out after 'em before this storm that's coming catches up with 'em. Me, I'm going to eat the whole hind leg off a beef and roll in between my soogans."
The storm Clint had spoke of came sure enough, and seemed like to want to clean the earth of all that drawed a breath, the snow piled up and up till, as the cowboy remarked, "the fence posts around the ranch are only sticking up about an inch, and soon wont be visible no more."
That storm would of meant the death of all the cattle that was on the range, and most of the horses too, but as the tail of it came, a high wind sprung up, the snow drifted and piled high in the coulees, and at the same time took the depth of it down considerable wherever that wind hit. When it all finally quit raging, there was many patches where the grass was buried only by a few inches, and them patches the wind had cleared was what saved the lives of the range stock that winter.
Clint had worried about Smoky as the stormy weather came on; he'd tried time and time again to get to him, but always some helpless critter made him branch off and finally turn back. "To morrow," Clint kept a saying, but the "To morrows" came and went and the cowboy always a fretting hadn't got near Smoky's range.
The great liking Clint had for the mouse colored horse made him fret and worry more than was necessary. That liking made him imagine a lot that was nowheres near true, and many a time that cowboy rolled in his bunk, tired, and wore out, and dreamed of seeing Smoky caught in a snow bank, weak, starving, and wolves drawing near.
Smoky had sure enough lost considerable fat, and his strength was reduced some too, but he was nowheres weak;—that is, not so weak that he couldn't get up easy once he layed down, or be able to travel and rustle for his feed. The last big storm had took him down some more, but he was still able to plow thru the snow banks that'd gathered on the sides of the ridges and get on the other side where the feed was easier reached.
If it didn't snow too much more there was no danger for Smoky and the bunch he was with. Him and Pecos had got to know that range so well, they knowed where the best of shelter could be found when the winds was cold or the blizzard howled, and then again, they knowed of many ridges and where the snow was always the thinnest. They had a spot to fit in with or against whatever the weather had to hand out, and whether the next on the program was to be sunshine or more snow they was still well able to enjoy or compete with either.
Weeks had passed since Smoky had raised his head out of the hollow in the snow and spotted the rider, who'd been Clint coming onto him, and then one day, here comes another rider. Smoky had been the first to spot that other rider, and as was natural, him and the rest of the bunch made tracks away from there and till the rider couldn't be seen no more.