I knew the place very well from Curly’s description, and found it easy to follow up the trickle of water which came down the canon from the spring.  Having found the spring, it was easy to locate the spot in the snowbank where the oysters had been cached.  I was not conscious of tarrying upon the way, yet, even so, there had been feet more swift than mine.  As I came up to the spring, I heard voices and saw two forms sitting at the edge of the snowbank.

“Here’s another one!” called out Dan Anderson as I appeared; and forthwith they broke into peals of unrighteous laughter.  “You’re a little slow; you’re number three; Mac was first.”

“I thought I heard an elk as I came up,” said I, as I sat down beside the others and tried to look unconcerned, although plainly out of breath.

“Elk!” snorted McKinney, as he arose and walked to the other edge of the snowbank.  “Here’s your elk tracks.”  McKinney, foreman on Carrizoso, was an old range-rider, and he was right.  Here was the track, plunging through the snow, and here was a deep hole where an elk, or something, had digged hurriedly, deeply, and, as it proved, effectively.

“Elk!” said McKinney again, savagely.  “Damn that cow puncher!  He took to his horse, ‘course he did, and not one of us thought of ridin’.  Who’d ever think a man would ride up here at all, let alone at night?  Come on, fellers, we might as well go home.”

“Well, I’m pleased to have met you, gentlemen,” said Anderson, lighting a philosophic pipe, “and I don’t mind walking back with you.  It’s a trifle lonesome in the hills after dark.  Why didn’t you tell me you were coming up?” He grinned with what seemed to us bad taste.

When we got down across the foot-hills and into the broad white street of Heart’s Desire, we espied a dark figure slowly approaching.  It proved to be Tom Osby, who later declared that he had found himself unable to sleep.  He had things in his pockets.  By common consent we now turned our footsteps across the arroyo, toward the cabin where dwelt the family from Kansas.

The house of the man from Leavenworth was lighted as though for some function.  There were no curtains at the windows, and even had there been, the shock of this spectacle which went on before our eyes would have been sufficient to set aside all laws and conventions.  With hands in pockets we stood and gazed blankly in at the open window.  There was a sound of revelry by night.  The narrow Mexican fireplace again held abundance of snapping, sparkling, crooked pinon wood.  The table was spread.  At its head sat the next postmaster; near him a lately sorrowful but now smiling lady, his wife, the woman from Kansas.  The elder daughter was busy at the fire.  At the right of the man from Leavenworth sat none less than Curly, the same whose cow pony, with bridle thrown down over its head, now stood nodding in the bright flood of the moonlight of Heart’s Desire.  At the side of Curly was the Littlest Girl from Kansas, and she was looking into his eyes.