Front matter (continued 3)

"Closest call we've had," said Jack. "Yes," I replied; "been pretty warm for us if we hadn't waked up. Our animals are doing better; first Snoozer distinguished himself, and now I think we've to thank Old Blacky mainly for this alarm."

We were pretty well frightened, and though we went back to bed, I do not believe that any of us slept again that night. At the first touch of dawn we were up. As it grew lighter, the great change in the landscape became apparent. The gray of the prairie was turned to the blackest of black. Only an occasional big staring buffalo skull relieved the inkiness. Far away to the northwest we could see a low hanging cloud of smoke where the fire was still burning.

"Blacky ought to have a hay medal," said Jack at breakfast. "If I had any hay I'd twist him up one as big as a door-mat."

But Blacky, unlike Snoozer, seemed to have no pride in his achievement, and he wandered all around the neighborhood trying to find a mouthful of grass which had been missed by the fire; but he was not successful.

"If the frozen man had been here last night he'd have been thawed out," I said.

"Yes; and if Shaw had been here, what a good time it would have been for him to let the fire run over his hair and clear off the thickest of it!" returned Jack.

We started on, but the long wind had brought bad weather, and before noon it began to snow. It kept up the rest of the day, and by night it was three or four inches deep. We stopped at noon at Lance Creek, and made our night camp at Willow Creek; at each place there was a stage station in charge of one man. It cleared off as night came on, but the wind changed to the north, and it grew rapidly colder. Shortly after midnight we all woke up with the cold. We already had everything piled on the beds, but as we were too cold to sleep, there was nothing to do but to get up and start the camp-fire again. This we did, and stayed near it the rest of the night, and in this way kept warm at the expense of our sleep.

The morning was clear, but it was by far the coldest we had experienced. The thermometer at the station marked below zero at sunrise. We almost longed for another prairie fire. It grew a little warmer after we started, and at about eleven o'clock we reached Fort Pierre, on the Missouri, opposite the town Of Pierre. The ferry-boat had not yet been over for the day, but was expected in the afternoon.

"You're lucky to get it at all," said a man to us. "It is liable to stop any day now, and then, till the ice is thick enough for crossing, there will be no way of getting over."

The boat came puffing across toward night, and we were safely landed east of the Missouri once more. But we were still two hundred miles from home; the country was well settled most of the way, however, and we felt that our voyage was almost ended. Little happened worthy of mention in the week which it took us to traverse this distance. The weather became warmer and was pleasant most of the way. On the last night out it snowed again a little and grew colder. We were still a long day's drive from Prairie Flower, but we determined to make that port even if it took half the night.

It was ten o'clock when we saw the lights of the town.

"Here we are," said Jack, "and I vote we've had a good time, and that we forgive Old Blacky his temper, and old Browny and Snoozer their sleepiness, and Ollie his questions, and the rancher his general incompetence."

"And the cook his pancakes!" cried Ollie. We stopped a little way in front of Squire Poinsett's grocery, and Jack picked up the big revolver and fired the six shots into the air. The pony had come alongside the wagon, and Snoozer had his head over the dash-board. Half a dozen people came running out, including Grandpa Oldberry, wearing red yarn mittens and carrying a lantern. He held up the light and looked at us.

"Well, I vum," he exclaimed, "if it ain't them three pesky scallawags back safe and sound! I've said all along that varmints would get ye sure, and we'd never see hide nor hair of ye again! Well, well, well!"

It was clear that Grandpa was just a little disappointed to see that his predictions hadn't been fulfilled.

So the voyage of the good schooner Rattletrap was ended. It had been over a thousand miles in length, and had lasted for more than two months.

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