Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I was out hunting some lost
horses. They had strayed from the range three months before, and we
had in a roundabout way heard that they were ranging near some broken
country, where a man named Brophy had a ranch, nearly fifty miles from
my own. When I started thither the weather was warm, but the second day
out it grew colder and a heavy snowstorm came on. Fortunately I was able
to reach the ranch all right, finding there one of the sons of a Little
Beaver ranchman, and a young cowpuncher belonging to a Texas outfit,
whom I knew very well. After putting my horse into the corral and
throwing him down some hay I strode into the low hut, made partly of
turf and partly of cottonwood logs, and speedily warmed myself before
the fire. We had a good warm supper, of bread, potatoes, fried venison,
and tea. My two companions grew very sociable and began to talk freely
over their pipes. There were two bunks one above the other. I climbed
into the upper, leaving my friends, who occupied the lower, sitting
together on a bench recounting different incidents in the careers of
themselves and their cronies during the winter that had just passed.
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