I could hardly remember where I was when I awoke, and I could almost hear the silence.  Not a tree moaned, not a branch seemed to stir.  I arose and my head came in violent contact with a snag that was not there when I went to bed.  I thought either I must have grown taller or the tree shorter during the night.  As soon as I peered out, the mystery was explained.

Such a snowstorm I never saw!  The snow had pressed the branches down lower, hence my bumped head.  Our fire was burning merrily and the heat kept the snow from in front.  I scrambled out and poked up the fire; then, as it was only five o’clock, I went back to bed.  And then I began to think how many kinds of idiot I was.  Here I was thirty or forty miles from home, in the mountains where no one goes in the winter and where I knew the snow got to be ten or fifteen feet deep.  But I could never see the good of moping, so I got up and got breakfast while Baby put her shoes on.  We had our squirrels and more baked potatoes and I had delicious black coffee.

After I had eaten I felt more hopeful.  I knew Mr. Stewart would hunt for me if he knew I was lost.  It was true, he wouldn’t know which way to start, but I determined to rig up “Jeems” and turn him loose, for I knew he would go home and that he would leave a trail so that I could be found.  I hated to do so, for I knew I should always have to be powerfully humble afterwards.  Anyway it was still snowing, great, heavy flakes; they looked as large as dollars.  I didn’t want to start “Jeems” until the snow stopped because I wanted him to leave a clear trail.  I had sixteen loads for my gun and I reasoned that I could likely kill enough food to last twice that many days by being careful what I shot at.  It just kept snowing, so at last I decided to take a little hunt and provide for the day.  I left Jerrine happy with the towel rolled into a baby, and went along the brow of the mountain for almost a mile, but the snow fell so thickly that I couldn’t see far.  Then I happened to look down into the canon that lay east of us and saw smoke.  I looked toward it a long time, but could make out nothing but smoke, but presently I heard a dog bark and I knew I was near a camp of some kind.  I resolved to join them, so went back to break my own camp.

At last everything was ready and Jerrine and I both mounted.  Of all the times!  If you think there is much comfort, or even security, in riding a pack-horse in a snowstorm over mountains where there is no road, you are plumb wrong.  Every once in a while a tree would unload its snow down our backs.  “Jeems” kept stumbling and threatening to break our necks.  At last we got down the mountain-side, where new danger confronted us,—­we might lose sight of the smoke or ride into a bog.  But at last, after what seemed hours, we came into a “clearing” with a small log house and, what is rare in Wyoming, a fireplace.  Three or four hounds set up their deep baying, and I knew by the chimney and the hounds that it was the home of a Southerner.  A little old man came bustling out, chewing his tobacco so fast, and almost frantic about his suspenders, which it seemed he couldn’t get adjusted.