When it was four o clock by Oscar’s watch breakfast had been disposed of, and the guide, having provided himself with a few pounds of crackers and several slices of cooked venison—all of which he wrapped up in his blankets, and carried over his shoulder, slung on his rifle’s barrel—left the cabin in company with his employer, and led the way toward the gulch that ran from the valley to the prairie. But he did not go far into the gulch. It was filled with drifts, and one glance at them was enough for Oscar, who urged the guide to give it up and go back to the cabin. “It would not be many days,” he said, “before a crust would form over the newly fallen snow, and then he could make the attempt with every hope of success.” But Big Thompson, being made of sterner stuff, declared that, having got so far on his way, he would not turn back until he was compelled to do so. He asked Oscar to repeat the messages he wished to send to the various officers at the post, told him to go straight back to the cabin, and be very careful of himself during his absence, and then shook him warmly by the hand and set out on his lonely journey. The boy watched him as long as he remained in sight, but instead of going back to camp, as he had been told to do, he built a fire under the bluff, and sat down beside it to await the guide’s return. “He’ll be back pretty soon,” thought Oscar, “and I wish I had brought the coffee-pot with me, for he will need something to refresh him.” Sure enough, Big Thompson returned just before noon (it was a little after daylight when he took leave of his employer), covered with snow from head to foot, and as nearly exhausted as a man like him could be. The snow was so deep and soft that he had gone scarcely five miles up the gorge before he was glad to turn back. It was a fortunate thing for him that he did so, for on the very next day the weather suddenly changed, and a “blizzard,” such as Big Thompson himself had not often seen, and which continued for thirty-six hours, roared through the hills. If the guide had gone on toward the fort the storm would have overtaken him on the prairie; and Oscar might have been left to pass the rest of the winter alone, and to find his own way out of the hills in the spring. On the fourth day the skies cleared, and the guide, who had made a pair of snow shoes, was ready to set out again as soon as he saw indications of settled weather. The snow in the valley was too deep for hunting on horseback, and Oscar and his companion were obliged to go on foot. The first day on which the weather permitted them to go out of doors they spent in making the rounds of their traps, one going up and the other down the valley, and the next they passed in company, hunting for nothing in particular, but ready to knock over any animal that came in their way, provided he was worth a charge of powder and lead. It was on the afternoon of this day that our hero saw a sight he did not soon forget.