I could make no effort to open the door for him. But I found voice to
answer him when he cried "Hello, Billy!" and in response to his
question assured him that I was all right. He soon cleared a passageway
through the snow, and stood beside me.
"I never expected to see you alive again," he said; "I had a terrible
trip. I didn't think I should ever get through--caught in the snowstorm
and laid up for three days. The cattle wandered away and I came within
an ace of losing them altogether. When I got started again the snow was
so deep I couldn't make much headway."
"Well, you're here," I said, giving him a hug.
Harrington had made a trip few men could have made. He had risked his
life to save mine. All alone he had brought a yoke of oxen over a
country where the trails were all obscured and the blinding snow made
every added mile more perilous.
I was still unable to walk, and he had to do all the work of packing up
for the trip home. In a few days he had loaded the pelts on board the
wagon, covered it with the wagon-sheet we had used in the dugout, and
made me a comfortable bed inside. We had three hundred beaver and one
hundred otter skins to show for our work. That meant a lot of money
when we should get them to the settlements.
On the eighth day of the journey home we reached a ranch on the
Republican River, where we rested for a couple of days.
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