In Cowboy Land 271 



not to pass over the dim trail unawares in the 

 dusk and the storm. They followed his ad- 

 vice, and reached camp safely; and after they 

 had left him nobody ever again saw him alive. 

 Evidently he himself, plodding northward, 

 passed over the road without seeing it in the 

 gathering gloom; probably he struck it at 

 some point where the ground was bad, and 

 the dim trail in consequence disappeared en- 

 tirely, as is the way with these prairie roads 

 making them landmarks to be used with 

 caution. He must then have walked on and 

 on, over rugged hills and across deep ravines, 

 until his horse came to a standstill; he took 

 off its saddle and picketed it to a dwarfed ash. 

 Its frozen carcass was found with the saddle 

 near by, two months later. He now evidently 

 recognized some landmark, and realized that 

 he had passed the road, and was far to the 

 north of the round-up wagons; but he was a 

 resolute, self-confident man, and he deter- 

 mined to strike out for a line camp, which 

 he knew lay about due east of him, two or 

 three miles out on the prairie, on one of the 

 head branches of Knife River. Night must 

 have fallen by this time, and he missed the 

 camp, probably passing it within less than a 

 mile ; but he did pass it, and with it all hopes 



