For a few minutes they both sat gazing out into the plain below, across which the evening shadows were slowly trailing. As far as they could see there was but a white unbroken sheet of snow, the only living thing visible being half a dozen ravens cawing hoarsely as they drifted into the distance. The second man pulled out his pipe, loaded, and lit it. "Jim," he queried, "do you know what night this is?" "I reckon I do," and Stanley's voice choked. "It's Christmas eve, an' I been a-thinkin' an' a-thinkin' all afternoon of that poor little chap out here a-fightin' his way through a storm, the like of which this range ain't seen in twenty years. Don't seem possible he's pulled through, although I'd back Dummy to make it and save his herd if any kid could." Suddenly he turned his head and sniffed. "Seems like I smell smoke, and cedar smoke at that," he said eagerly. "Don't you git it, Bob?" "Which way's the wind?" and Bob blew a cloud of smoke into the frosty air. "What there is comes from the direction of that there little hill," pointing to the very hill on which Dummy had stood. The instant they topped it, each caught sight of the dry farmer's place, the haystack, the sheep in the field and knew they had found that for which they sought. "You know the place?" asked Bob, as they hurried down. "I do for a fact," Stanley grinned, "last time I passed this-a-way the old digger what built that shack an' taken up the dry farm was cuttin' an' stackin' Russian thistles. When I laughed at him for a fool he said he ain't raised nothing' else, an' up North Dakota way they used to put 'em up for roughness when the crops failed, an' he's seen many an old Nellie pulled through a hard winter on 'em." Ten minutes later the two rode up to the shack. A line of scattered fodder from the stack to the shed showed what the boy had been doing. Bob picked up a handful of the stuff: "Roosian thistles by all that's holy," was his comment, "an' whoever before heerd tell of them tumble weeds a-bein' good for anything to eat." As he spoke the lad came round the corner of the shed in which "Slippers" had been comfortably stabled and fed. What with smoke from campfires, and the charcoal he had smeared over it to save his eyes, his face was as black as Toby's hat, but to Stanley it was the face of a hero. Uttering those strange guttural sounds, waving his arms towards the sheep, his dark eyes shining with pride and joy the boy ran to Stanley as a child to its father. The man, too overwhelmed and happy to speak, grabbed the lad close to his heart, stroking the tousled head and patting tenderly the dirty cheeks down which the child's tears were now cutting deep trails in their extra covering while, as he realized the boy could hear not a word of the praise and thanks he was showering on him for his pluck and fidelity the tears came to his own eyes nor did he try to stop them.