“Well, Billy, my boy, I hardly expected to see you alive again,” said Harrington, as soon as I had given him an opportunity to draw his breath; “I had a terrible trip of it, and I didn’t think I ever would get through.  I was caught in the snow-storm, and was laid up for three days.  The cattle wandered away, and I came within an ace of losing them altogether.  When I got started again the snow was so deep that it prevented me from making much headway.  But as I had left you here I was bound to come through, or die in the attempt.”

Again I flung my arms around Dave’s neck and gave him a hug that would have done honor to a grizzly bear.  My gratitude was thus much more forcibly expressed than it could have been by words.  Harrington understood this, and seemed to appreciate it.  The tears of joy rolled down my cheeks, and it was impossible for me to restrain them.  When my life had been threatened by the Indians I had not felt half so miserable as when I lay in the dug-out thinking I was destined to die a slow death by starvation and cold.  The Indians would have made short work of it, and would have given me little or no time to think of my fate.

I questioned Harrington as to his trip, and learned all the details.  He had passed through hardships which but few men could have endured.  Noble fellow, that he was.  He had risked his own life to save mine.

After he had finished his story, every word of which I had listened to with eager interest, I related to him my own experiences, in which he became no less interested.  He expressed great astonishment that the Indians had not killed me, and he considered it one of the luckiest and most remarkable escapes he had ever heard of.  It amused me, however, to see him get very angry when I told him that they had taken my gun and pistol and had used up our provisions.  “But never mind, Billy,” said he, “we can stand it till the snow goes off, which will not be long, and then we will pull our wagon back to the settlements.”

A few days afterwards Harrington gathered up our traps, and cleaned the snow out of the wagon.  Covering it with the sheet which we had used in the dug-out, he made a comfortable bed inside, and helped me into it.  We had been quite successful in trapping, having caught three hundred beavers and one hundred otters, the skins of which Harrington loaded on the wagon.  We then pulled out for the settlements, making good headway, as the snow had nearly disappeared, having been blown or melted away, so that we had no difficulty in finding a road.  On the eighth day out we came to a farmer’s house, or ranch, on the Republican River, where we stopped and rested for two days, and then went on to the ranch where Harrington had obtained the yoke of cattle.  We gave the owner of the team twenty-five beaver skins, equal to $60, for the use of the cattle, and he let us have them until we reached Junction City, sending his boy with us to bring them back.