Returning to camp the boys proceeded to slip into their blankets quietly, say nothing about what they had seen, and go to sleep. They believed the straggling band of Arapahoes were not on the war-path and had work for the "medicine-man"—the big buck they first saw come out of his tepee.
You have no idea how cautiously the boys went about getting the blankets off the wagon so as not to disturb the boss, a man they feared. So they moved noiselessly.
One threw his roll of blankets from the top of the trailer and the other caught the bundle and proceeded to flatten it out into a comfortable bed when he heard a familiar noise, and forgetting that they were to be silent, the youth on the ground yelled:
"Look out—a rattler!"
It woke up the whole camp. The snake had occupied the blankets from four a. m., at least, until this time—midnight. Perhaps he had slept with the boy until four a. m.; I think he did; anyway, he had rolled him up and put him where found.
CHAPTER VI
Belated Grace for a Christmas Dinner.
After fighting through a ten-hour blizzard that swept across the plains from the Elk Mountain country our wagon-train reached the foothills of the Medicine Bow range, where there was shelter for the work cattle along a swift running stream. The snow was piled in great drifts everywhere except upon exposed high spots, and it seemed impossible for us to proceed farther, for we knew that along the government trail just beyond, and 1,000 feet higher, that the drifts would be so deep that a long camp where we had stopped would be necessary.
Ten men were tolled off by the wagon-boss to chop down young quaking aspen trees, the bark and small twigs of which furnished appetizing fodder for the bulls. Another gang climbed a sidehill and with axes felled a group of stunted pines for the side walls of a cabin; still others were sent into a "burnt and down" piece of timber to gather well seasoned dead pitch pine for firewood.