While Harshaw, Dud, and Bob were working Wolf Creek another heavy snow fell. A high wind swept the white blanket into deep drifts. All day the riders ploughed through these to rescue gaunt and hungry cattle. Night caught them far from the cabin where they had been staying.
They held a consultation. It was bitter weather, the wind still blowing.
“Have to camp, looks like,” Harshaw said.
“We’ll have a mighty tough night without grub and blankets,” Dud said doubtfully. “She’s gettin’ colder every minute.”
“There’s a sheltered draw below here. We’ll get a good fire going anyhow.”
In the gulch they found a band of elk.
“Here’s our supper an’ our beds,” Dud said.
They killed three.
While Bob gathered and chopped up a down and dead tree the others skinned the game. There was dry wood in Harshaw’s saddle-bags with which to start a fire. Soon Dillon had a blaze going which became a crackling, roaring furnace. They ate a supper of broiled venison without trimmings.
“Might be a heap worse,” Dud said while he was smoking afterward before the glowing pine knots. “I’m plenty warm in front even if I’m about twenty below up an’ down my spine.”