house, but nothing is quite as nice as that."

Mrs. Graham and Carl were roused, and they were soon sitting down to chops from a mountain sheep and corn bread which Stella had made; and they all voted that winter life in Montana promised to be a very jolly thing.

When Ted went outdoors the whole world was simply a glittering waste where the sun shone on, and was reflected back from the vast field of snow.

Sultan was in the sheltered corral, and as Ted threw the saddle on his back he reared and jumped about like a playful kitten.

"Quit your cavorting about, you rascal," said Ted, as Sultan wheeled away from the saddle with a playful snort, at the same time reaching around and trying to nip Ted's shoulder with his teeth.

"My, but you're feeling gay this morning," said Ted. "Here, hold still, won't you? How do you suppose I'm ever going to get this saddle on you if you don't stand still?"

But the cold weather and the bright sunshine had filled Sultan with ginger, and he was as full of play as a small boy when he wakes up some early winter morning and sees the ground covered with the first snow, and remembers the sled that has lain in the woodshed all summer.

But at last the saddle was on, and then Ted had his hands full getting into it.

"Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I get on you. I'll take some of that out of you."

But when he tried to find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled away from him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of a professional dancer.

But at last Ted made a leap and landed safely upon Sultan's back, and gave him a slap with the loose end of his rein. The little horse gave a leap like a kangaroo, and dashed through the gateway of the corral and across the white prairie, running like a quarter horse.

The herd was nowhere in sight, but in the far distance Ted saw a thin blue stream of smoke rising in the still, frosty air.

He knew it to be the camp fire of McCall, and that breakfast was going forward at the cow camp in the snow.

Heading Sultan toward it, Ted rushed on through the stimulating air of a Northern winter, and soon came in sight of the chuck wagon, and several of the boys standing around a fire.

As he dashed forward he raised the long yell, which was gleefully answered, and soon he was at the camp.

This was where he and Stella had started from the night before.

Turning his eyes back in the direction he had come, Ted could see the smoke rising from the chimney of the ranch house, although the house itself was hidden behind a swell in the surface of the prairie.

Had he only known it, he might have driven the herd right up to the ranch house during the night. As it was, he saw now that he and Stella, with the carriage, had ridden for almost two hours in the night, traveling in a circle, and by the merest chance had stumbled upon the ranch house.

"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"

"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw out his boots at the fire.

"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.

"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.

"Are they all right?"

"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee, and won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters you ever saw. We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Bud sent us along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back so that the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"

"Yes, accidentally stumbled on to it. Bully place, and the womenfolks are comfortably settled."

"Looks like it," grunted Ben, pointing to the north.

Ted looked in that direction and saw a spotted pony leaping toward them, and above it a dash of scarlet. It was Stella, riding like the wind on Magpie.

"Have any trouble with the critters in the night?" asked Ted.

"Did we? Well, I should howl. After you got under way they began to drift before the wind. We fought them all night, and if we'd let them go they'd been plumb into Colorado by this time. I don't want any more such nights in mine."

"That was only a starter, my friend. That was a picnic compared to what you may have to go up against before the daisies bloom again."

"Chuck!" yelled McCall, beating on the bottom of a griddle with a big iron spoon.

The fellows left the fire in a hurry and, squatting in the snow with a tin cup full of steaming coffee and a plate heaped with fried bacon and griddle cakes, were soon too busy to remember their weariness.

Stella had ridden up, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling with the frost and the exercise.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" she cried to Ted. "You're a mean thing. Thought you'd leave me behind, but here I am." She made a little face at Ted.

"I thought you'd rather stay indoors to-day on account of the cold," stammered Ted.

"Well, change your line of thought. There's going to be nothing to keep me indoors in this country, and don't you forget it. If I've got to stay indoors, I'll go South."

As soon as the boys had finished breakfast they were ready for another day's work.

"Come on, fellows," shouted Ted. "Let's hurry to where the critters are, and send the other boys back. Mac, cook up another breakfast for them."

They were in the saddle in a jiffy, and scurrying toward the south as fast as their ponies could carry them.

Ted found the herd bogged in a shallow coulee that was filled to the top with snow, in which they stood up to their bellies, lowing from fright, hunger, and thirst.

They were packed in a solid mass, and could not get out on the other side because the wall of the coulee was too steep for them to clamber up, as they might have done had it not been for the deep snow with which it was drifted full.

As a matter of fact, though, the coulee had saved the herd from drifting many miles in the night.

But how to get them out was the question that perplexed Bud, and with the arrival of Ted he thankfully turned the task over to him.

"Hike for the chuck wagon, boys," shouted Ted, as he came up.

"Well, I should smile to ejaculate," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' cold as a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinée over ter you, my friend, not wishin' you any harm."

"Go ahead and enjoy yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you have filled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out of this hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'd only known it, we could have made it in half an hour more last night."

When Bud had ridden away Ted took stock of the situation, and found that he had a difficult problem to solve.

Under ordinary circumstances it would have been easy to snake the cattle out of the coulee by roping them around the horns and dragging them out with the ponies, but it was utterly impossible to do that with a couple of thousand of them.

While he was looking things over he became aware that Stella had ridden away. He looked anxiously after her, for he knew her propensity for getting into trouble when she rode alone. Soon she dropped out of sight behind a swell in the prairie with a flash in the sunlight of her scarlet jacket.

Ted was still studying the situation, riding up and down the edge of the coulee, trying to figure out some plan of rescue, and noting the cattle that were down, and which were rapidly being trampled to death by the other beasts, or being smothered by the snow.

The prospect was not a pleasing one to the young cow boss, for he saw the profits of the venture fading away hourly.

Suddenly a faint, shrill yell reached his ears, and he wheeled his pony in the direction from which it came.

Stella's scarlet jacket was coming toward him in a whirlwind of flying snow, and he rushed toward her.

What could have happened