Gray days. White days. Bitter days. The cattle drifting down into the badlands. Even the big native steers were finding it hard to paw to feed under the crusted snow. Buck’s black chaps no longer banked his stolen money. He had buried the stuff in a corner of the cow shed, wrapped carefully in his slicker. His daylight labors brought peace of mind. But sometimes he lay awake, far into the night, haunted by thoughts of the buried wealth. The dream of a cow outfit of his own was replaced by the black nightmare of his theft. He was tempted a hundred times to share the burden of his guilt with Cotton Eye who was now hobbling about on crutches made of forked sticks wrapped and padded with deerskin. “Wish I could git word out to the ranch,” said Buck, “This hay ain’t gonna last. The only shot, if this keeps up, is to drift south o’ the river where the shelter is better. Mebbe train out from there. They could buy hay at Lewistown and Gilt Edge. I had to kill three more calves today. Cows didn’t have milk to feed the li’l beggars. Hear the cows a-bawlin’? Hell, ain’t it?” The haystacks were becoming fewer. Buck and his crippled partner found it hard to fill the long silences that fell over them. Cotton Eye hobbled about now, getting the meals and washing dishes. He scraped the thick frost from the window and would sit there, smoking and watching Buck Bell pitch hay sparingly to the starving cattle. When Buck saddled his horse and rode back into the breaks to bring in more stumbling, gaunt steers and cows, Cotton Eye would curse with futile fury at his aching leg. “Brung in three more o’ Dick Powell’s steers today. Weak as hell. Three-four Circle Diamond cows, another Square steer, one er two Bear Paw Pool strays, and the Widder Brown’s Jersey milk cow. The widder sets a heap o’ store by that cow. It must be shore a-stormin’ up on the ridges, to drift that stuff into the breaks. If this keeps up, there won’t be a cow left in the country.” “You was sayin’ something about gettin’ word to the ranch, Buck. I kin make out to ride now. I’d like to tackle it. Ain’t doin’ no good here.” “If you’re plumb sure you kin make it, pardner?” “Shore thing, I kin. I’ll pull out in the mornin’.” * * * * * Buck wrapped the injured leg in a blanket and Cotton Eye rode away in the gray dawn. Buck grinned a farewell. When Cotton Eye was gone, Buck tried to whistle away the gnawing loneliness. He worked feverishly, not even taking a few minutes off at noon for his usual coffee and beans and meat. Now and then, when his chores took him past the corner of the shed where the stolen money had been buried, he would quicken his pace, as a man afraid of ghosts might pass with haste by a grave. “Why did Horace lie?” he asked himself a thousand and one times. “Because Horace knowed who done the robbery!” came the still answer out of each night’s darkness.