the year when the days began to lengthen and the cold to strengthen, winter set in in earnest. Larry who had been brought up in New England thought he knew what snow was, but he soon found that he was mistaken. For it fell out here in Wyoming day after day in great white, shifting, drifting flakes which piled up in enormous drifts.
With the coming of the deep snow the cow-punchers got out what ponies had been kept in the corral and began breaking out paths for the cattle. A cow-puncher mounted upon his favorite steed and leading three other ponies behind him would make a path for the cattle leading to the best feed and drinking places. The parada had gradually drifted down to the lower plateau and had taken refuge in several sheltered canyons on some unfenced land below the plateau. Here they were somewhat sheltered and the snow was not so deep. The ponies, of which there were about a hundred loose on the ranch, made better work of feeding in the winter time than did the cows. They would go from point to point pawing under the snow and uncovering the seered, frost-bitten grass. Each pony was sure to have a string of cows following after him to pick up the morsels that he left.
After the middle of January the hay stacks on the home ranch, containing several hundred tons of hay, were thrown open to the cattle. They fell upon it
