“I ain’t askin’ it of ’em,” Bandy retorted. “I can look out for myself an’ then some. As for this sprout who thinks he’s so gosh-mighty, I’ll jus’ say one thing. Some o’ these days I’ll settle with him proper.”
He turned as he spoke. The look on his battered face was venomous.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE SADDLE
White winter covered the sage hills and gave the country a bleak and desolate look. The Slash Lazy D riders wrapped up and went out over the wind-swept mesas to look after the cattle cowering in draws or drifting with the storm. When Bob could sleep snugly in the bunkhouse he was lucky. There were nights when he shivered over a pine-knot fire in the shelter of a cutbank with the temperature fifteen degrees below zero.
At this work he won the respect of his fellows. He could set his teeth and endure discomfort with any of them. It was at sharp danger crises that he had always quailed. He never shirked work or hardship, and he never lied to make the way easier or more comfortable. Harshaw watched him with increasing approval. In Dillon he found all but one of the essential virtues of the cowboy—good humor, fidelity, truth, tenacity, and industry. If he lacked courage in the face of peril the reason was no doubt a constitutional one.
A heavy storm in February tried the riders to capacity. They were in the saddle day and night. For weeks they appeared at the ranch only at odd intervals, haggard, unshaven, hungry as wolves. They ate, saddled fresh mounts, and went out into the drifts again tireless and indomitable.
Except for such food as they could carry in a sack they lived on elk trapped in the deep snow. The White River country was one of the two or three best big game districts in the United States.[3] The early settlers could get a deer whenever they wanted one. Many were shot from the doors of their cabins.