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praisement and curiosity, and much conciliation. There was no prophet to tell us when that drifting evil outside might cease to fall; and it is well, when snow-bound, to stand somewhere within the radius of the cook’s favourable consideration. But I could read neither favour nor disapproval in the face and manner of our pot-wrestler.

He was about five feet nine inches, and two hundred pounds of commonplace, bull-necked, pink-faced, callous calm. He wore brown duck trousers too tight and too short, and a blue flannel shirt with sleeves rolled above his elbows. There was a sort of grim, steady scowl on his features that looked to me as though he had fixed it there purposely as a protection against the weakness of an inherent amiability that, he fancied, were better concealed. And then I let supper usurp his brief occupancy of my thoughts.

“Draw up, George,” said Ross. “Let’s all eat while the grub’s hot.”

“You fellows go on and chew,” answered the cook. “I ate mine in the kitchen before sundown.”

“Think it’ll be a big snow, George?” asked the ranchman.

George had turned to reënter the cook room. He moved slowly around and, looking at his face, it seemed to me that he was turning over the wisdom and knowledge of centuries in his head.

“It might,” was his delayed reply.

At the door of the kitchen he stopped and looked