Well, I ragged around in the mountains between Nevada and California, lookin' for a flat-shaped rock with a mountain-peak on each side of it, an' a cold wind sweepin' up the canon--I don't know just how the cold wind got included, but the dyin' outlaw dwelt upon that cold wind something particular. I stayed out puny late in the season, an' if cold winds was identifyin', Brophy had his treasure buried purty unpartially all over the West. I reckon I'd have died if I had it fallen in with Slocum. Slocum was a queer lookin' speciment when you first came upon him. His skin didn't fit him very well, bein' a trifle too big, an' wrankled an' baggy in consequence; his eyes was kind of a washy blue, an' they stuck out from his face, givin' him the most sorrowful expression I ever see. You just couldn't be suspicious of a man with such eyes as that; he seemed to have throwed himself wide open an' invited the whole world to come an' look inside. Why, a perfect stranger would have trusted Slocum with his last plug of tobacoo, and like as not he'd have gotten part of it back. Well, as I said, I was headin' for warmer weather, but I got overtook an' had about given up all hope when I noticed the smell of smoke in the air. I was walkin' on foot an' pullin' a burro with a pack behind me, an' after a time I located that smoke comin' right up through the snow. I yelled and shouted around for a while without gettin' any response. Night and the snow was both fallin' fast, an' that smoke was exceeding temptin'. Finally I took a piece of burlap off the pack, put it over the hole where the smoke was comin' up through, an' piled snow on top of it. I was curious to see what would happen. I waited--perhaps it was only five minutes, but it seemed that many hours--an' then a low, calm voice, down somewhere beneath me, sez, "Get off that chimney!" "I will," sez I, "when you tell me how to get to the fire." I waited again, an' then a man with a lantern emerged into the cut about forty feet below me, an' told me how I could wind around and come down to him. Well, me an' the burro finally worked it out, an' there was a man with long whiskers standin' in his shirt-sleeves in front of a hole in the snow. "You like to 'a' smothered me," he grumbled. "Don't you know better'n to stop up a chimney that's workin'?" "I wanted the chimney to work double," sez I, "an' that was the only way I could think up to attract your attention." "Do you live around here?" sez he. "Not very much," sez I, "but I 'm minded to try it a while, if there 's room in your burrow for two." "Got any tobacco?" sez he. "Plenty," sez I. "You're welcome," sez he.