the inmates of this here cabin would be wagging a tail just at
present."

This way we goes on for two or three days, and then we quits speaking
to one another. We divides up the cooking implements, and Idaho cooks
his grub on one side of the fireplace, and me on the other. The snow
is up to the windows, and we have to keep a fire all day.

You see me and Idaho never had any education beyond reading and doing
"if John had three apples and James five" on a slate. We never felt
any special need for a university degree, though we had acquired a
species of intrinsic intelligence in knocking around the world that we
could use in emergencies. But, snowbound in that cabin in the Bitter
Roots, we felt for the first time that if we had studied Homer or
Greek and fractions and the higher branches of information, we'd have
had some resources in the line of meditation and private thought. I've
seen them Eastern college fellows working in camps all through the
West, and I never noticed but what education was less of a drawback to
'em than you would think. Why, once over on Snake River, when Andrew
McWilliams' saddle horse got the botts, he sent a buckboard ten miles
for one of these strangers that claimed to be a botanist. But that
horse died.

One morning Idaho was poking around with a stick on top of a little
shelf that was too high to reach. Two books fell down to the floor. I
started toward 'em, but caught Idaho's eye. He speaks for the first
time in a week.

"Don't burn your fingers," says he. "In spite of the fact that you're
only fit to be the companion of a sleeping mud-turtle, I'll give you a