Evening star., 1907-11-17


language, gave over the pursuit.
That Painted Comanche is shore the king of
Drumhead ridge" Rube the Ready was compelled
to admit.
For another year the wild ponies faunted their
freedom among the Drumhead foothills. Then
came the unprecedented winter of 1880, and
country which had not known a white blanket
within the memory OF men was buried to depth
that promised ruin to the cattle raisers Yet strange
to say, the Billiards which followed in quick sue
Cesson, and which should have destroyed the herds,
were the means of preserving large percentage of
the stock These fierce winds swept bare the ridges
and level plateaus, and such herds as were not
caught in canon coulee, and buried beneath their
avalanches, able to find grass after the storms
At Two Bells the men for the most part sat
round their box stove in glum heplessness. Washoe
Pete half-blood Paute, first to venture
among the hills He was gone four days, and during
the blizzard which ragged meantime the at
Two Bells doubtful of his fate.
90 If he wasn't an 1njun the foreman said, I'D
sure know his chips raked off green
But Pete, having buried himself and his pony: in
the worst of the storm. When he hove in sight Of
Two Bells with the drifts curling round his ponys
legs, Rube the Ready was at the horse corral, He
discovered of the wild ponies at the tail of his
lariat. "Whar's the Painted Comanche?"
Pete grinned as he unleathered himself, and
explained. 81 Him corraled in the drifts he said;
all wild horses caught-wolf get 'um bimeby."
Pete explained that the wild bunch had taken shell
ter under the red cliffs of Drumhead in a coulee.
and had been hemmed in by a snowslide part of
them had been buried. The two he had brought in
had been stalled. He had tramped path the
lower side of the snow heap, htched his ponys
lariat, and pulled the ha-starved creatures out of
limbo. He had led them home by devious ridges
known only to himself. But the Painted Comanche
was cooped with three or four Others of his band.
where they had no more room than in the of
horse corral, and had browsed the chaparral until
every twig cleared of bark. And, sneaking upon
the cliffs, pack of wolves were waiting for the
end
Pete, you go with tomorrow" said Rube.
And Pete. who would as soon be out in blizzard
in a spring shower, grinned assent.
Out for the Last Trial
WHEN morning came snow was again falling.
w and the drifts shifting in snakeike coils
from point to point. Despite discouraging remarks
of the foreman and others, Rube and Pete set at
daylight. They toed the levels and up to
the ridges of Drumhead-toward gray cloud cur
tains, over barren polls, and along hogbacks, with
sagebush and boulders here and there plucking
through the drifts and for hours plodded
interminable white surfaces. Long before the sum-
n1its reached Rube compelled to don his
blue goggles.
On they waded until at last when their ponies,
legs were dragging wearily in the drifts they
upon a rim of red cliffs, and Pete hating a
projection, pointed into the depths below. Of the
size of party colored rabbits, Rube saw the wild
ponies, with bumped backs and heads hanging,
dumping" in confined notch where they had
little more than treadmill room.
Shore as my empty stummick wants filling,
thar's the Painted Comanchel' yelled the jubilant
cowboy. Lets go below, make camp, and eat,
When, the following morning, from the bed
of the canon, they crawled out of the drifts and
mounted to soft heights of the recent slide,
thrilling awaited their eyes. Rube first
to come within view.
Pete, jest crawl alongside an witness the sight
of your life!' he said.
What Pete saw was even to his Indian experience
something novel. The gray wolf pack, having
grown tired of long wait and desperately hungry,