On the last crust of all this snow and sleet it was finally found possible to take the oxen farther along into the mountains, where four men drove them. Others went ahead with axes and for two weeks cut aspens and sought out hidden protected places in the valleys where there were a few blades of grass and some succulent underbrush. One day, when the sun was shining brightly on the white mantle and the distant peaks of the majestic mountains of blue stood out like a painting, Nate Williams, wagon-boss, spoke: "Do you know," he said to the fellows who were carving the carcass of a faithful old bullock, "that tomorrow is Christmas?" None had thought of it. "And," he continued, "do you know we are liable to stay where we are until the Fourth of July, if we don't get a move on?" There were no suggestions. "Furthermore," added Williams, "we haven't much else to eat but beef--there are just five 100-pound sacks of flour in the mess wagon--no bacon nor canned goods. Its a case of shoveling a road to Crane's Neck." Crane's Neck was a mountain twist in the road, a mile from camp. If the road could be cleared to that point there would be fair hauling for five miles in the range to another stretch that had been filled in places with from ten to twenty feet of snow, while one spot was covered by a slide from a mountain to a depth of forty feet and for a considerable distance along the trail. For three hours plans were discussed, and it was finally determined to go to work with shovels and picks, but not until after Christmas. Our caravan included a blacksmith's forge, also a regular wrecking outfit, and in a short time big wooden shovels were made from blocks of pine with handles stoutly attached with iron bands. The cook was a youth of twenty and had all the enthusiasm of the adventurer. He had spent a year on a whaler and knew what it meant to drift in the ice north of Point Barrow. This present situation, he said, was a picnic; so was the one in the Arctic. It couldn't be so bad that he wished to be snuggled away in a feather bed somewhere east of the Missouri River. That would be too ordinary. "If I could sit down to a table at the best hotel in the land," he said, "I'd prefer to eat the dinner that I'm going to cook for you fellows tomorrow." Williams sneered. "Yes," he said, "we put old Tex (a long-horn bull) out of his starving misery and the boys have found his liver to be O. K. Maybe you can give us a liver pie." "I'll do better than that," said the boy; "I'll not only give you a beef stew, but a pudding that you can't buy outside of London or Liverpool--a plum duff--and a cake. Old Tex will also be on the menu in several places, for his tenderloin looks good, and there are a few steaks which, when properly treated with a maul on the top of a stump, will be as good as you will get in a 'Frisco water front lodging, and better than any of you fellows have had since we hit the drifts."