The fellars around the stove they spits some more. They was afraid. That’s what was the matter. Plain it was there had been talk among ’em, ridin’ away yesterday after Edmund’s remarks. Maybe some of ’em knowed their geography correct on that point, but they didn’t feel they knowed it correct enough to insist upon it in the presence of witnesses. Anyway they drops it now, and after some further spittin’ they changes the subject again. “There’ll be plenty snow at the Robinson Cabin,” says one. “Plenty at Early Winter by now,” another says. “Oh, they’ll get through,” says a third. “I wonder if they’ll get my silver-gray fox,” says old man Parrigin. So the talk turns for a while on trappin’, and dies down till the rapids was the only noise; and then a Texan got up and stretched himself, and said he’d be late for dinner, he guessed, if he didn’t begin to think some about startin’ home. So he began to think, I suppose, though it didn’t show none on his face. Edmund kep’ a-writin’ up his ledger. Y’u could hear the rapids just as if they had come clost up outside. And the snow was fallin’ and fallin’. Old man Parrigin holds up his hand. “What’s that?” he says. So we all pricks up our ears. The snow had the valley pretty well muffled, but there did seem to be somethin’. So a fellar looks out and he says it’s somebody comin’ acrost the bridge. Hard to tell who it was for the snow. But next minute he got nearer, and it was Frisco Baldy, walkin’ his horse turrable slow. “My God!” says somebody, “somethin’s happened.” And we all crowds out. “More horses on the bridge,” says Parrigin. We could all see ’em. It was packhorses creepin’ along. Behind ’em trailed a man ridin’, and that was Kultus Jake. “Then what has happened?” somebody says. Baldy he arrives first, snow on his hat two inches deep. He gets down and jumps some to shake off the snow, and then walks in through us and goes to the stove and takes a chair. Not a word said. Packhorses they arrives and stands around all over snow--stand sad and hangdog, like they was guilty and had gave up denyin’ it. Jake comes along a mile an hour, same as Baldy; and he gets down and jumps the snow off, and same as Baldy, he passes through us and goes to the stove. But he puts it between him and Baldy. Sits down and don’t look at Baldy. So we all comes back in and sits down, too--except Edmund. He goes behind his desk and stands up there with his spectacles pushed high. “Well?” he says. Baldy’s lips move, but nothin’ sounds. “Well?” Edmund repeats. “Was the trail snowed up? Anybody dead?” Jake clears his throat, but that’s all. Then Baldy manages to talk. “No,” he says kind of croakin’; “trail wasn’t snowed up.” “Not then, it wasn’t,” says Jake. “Nobody’s dead.”