IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 75 



It has rained nearly all day to-day and continues to rain 

 to-night, so that there is no possibility of drying our blankets, 

 as we had intended to do, and we have no alternative there 

 is no escape from it we must sleep in wet blankets to-night. 

 It is a gloomy prospect, and no mistake. The cold chills run 

 up and down our backs as we think of it, and whenever any 

 one mentions it, a groan escapes from the other two. The 

 mercury has crawled down (or would crawl down if there were 

 any mercury in this region) to the freezing point, and a 

 violent snow-storm has set in. The wind sucks down through 

 the canyon just back of our camp, and moans through the 

 cottonwoods, driving the snow in blinding clouds through 

 the brush, over the hills, and heaping it on our fire in such 

 quantities that it soon drowned it out. 



" Well, what shall we do now? " 



"Go to bed, I suppose/' said Huffman, drawing a deep 

 sigh, and proceeding, with the aid of a forked limb, to extract 

 his boots, which were as wet as the snow and water in which 

 he had been wading, could make them. I struck a match and 

 looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. 



" Well, Huffman," I said, " we shall only have nine hours 

 to wait until daylight, and then we can get up and make a 

 fire again." 



" Nine hours in those wet blankets, this cold, stormy 

 night ! " said he, with another sigh. " I wish the man who 

 invented hunting was in Greenland, and had to sleep on an 

 iceberg to-night." 



" And I wish we were all in Florida," said Jack. 



We had made our camp where a band of Crow Indians 

 had camped a few days before. They had left some of their 

 wiciup poles in position, and we had spread our canvas 

 over them, thus making a very close, comfortable shelter, if 

 not as roomy as we might wish for. Huffman and I crawled 



