The wolves, smelling meat within, had now begun to gather round in
increasing numbers. They made the night hideous with their howlings,
and pawed and scratched and dug at the snow by the doorway, determined
to come in and make a meal of everything the dugout contained, myself
included.

How I endured it I do not know. But the Plains teach men and boys
fortitude. Many and many a time as I lay there I resolved that if I
should ever be spared to go back to my home and friends, the frontier
should know me no more.

It was on the twenty-ninth day, as marked on stick, when I had about
given up hope, that I heard a cheerful voice shouting "Whoa!" and
recognized it as the voice of Harrington. A criminal on the scafford
with the noose about his neck and the trap sagging underneath his feet
could not have welcomed a pardon more eagerly than I welcomed my
deliverance out of this torture-chamber.

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.