We huddled together on our knees in the deep snow, and the horses put their noses together and bowed their patient heads over us; and while the feathery flakes eddied down and turned us into a group of white statuary, we proceeded with the momentous experiment.  We broke twigs from a sage bush and piled them on a little cleared place in the shelter of our bodies.  In the course of ten or fifteen minutes all was ready, and then, while conversation ceased and our pulses beat low with anxious suspense, Ollendorff applied his revolver, pulled the trigger and blew the pile clear out of the county!  It was the flattest failure that ever was.

This was distressing, but it paled before a greater horror—­the horses were gone!  I had been appointed to hold the bridles, but in my absorbing anxiety over the pistol experiment I had unconsciously dropped them and the released animals had walked off in the storm.  It was useless to try to follow them, for their footfalls could make no sound, and one could pass within two yards of the creatures and never see them.  We gave them up without an effort at recovering them, and cursed the lying books that said horses would stay by their masters for protection and companionship in a distressful time like ours.

We were miserable enough, before; we felt still more forlorn, now.  Patiently, but with blighted hope, we broke more sticks and piled them, and once more the Prussian shot them into annihilation.  Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle of a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good place or time for the acquiring of the accomplishment.  We gave it up and tried the other.  Each man took a couple of sticks and fell to chafing them together.  At the end of half an hour we were thoroughly chilled, and so were the sticks.  We bitterly execrated the Indians, the hunters and the books that had betrayed us with the silly device, and wondered dismally what was next to be done.  At this critical moment Mr. Ballou fished out four matches from the rubbish of an overlooked pocket.  To have found four gold bars would have seemed poor and cheap good luck compared to this.

One cannot think how good a match looks under such circumstances—­or how lovable and precious, and sacredly beautiful to the eye.  This time we gathered sticks with high hopes; and when Mr. Ballou prepared to light the first match, there was an amount of interest centred upon him that pages of writing could not describe.  The match burned hopefully a moment, and then went out.  It could not have carried more regret with it if it had been a human life.  The next match simply flashed and died.  The wind puffed the third one out just as it was on the imminent verge of success.  We gathered together closer than ever, and developed a solicitude that was rapt and painful, as Mr. Ballou scratched our last hope on his leg.  It lit, burned blue and sickly,