They resumed their journey the next morning, but they advanced in leisurely fashion. Breakstone warned them that there were other high ranges ahead, and they agreed that it would not be wise to attempt their passage in winter. Hence, they must find a winter home in some sheltered spot, where the three requisites of wild life, wood, water, and game, could be found. It did not take them long to find such a place, and they built a rude cabin, using it as their base during the remainder of the winter, which was mild, as they were not at a great elevation. Although they made an occasional scout, they never found any Indian sign, and the cold weather passed in comparative ease and safety. Little Billy developed at a remarkable rate, and here he sloughed off the last vestige of the Indian. But he had learned many cunning arts in hunting, trapping, and fishing which he never forgot, and there were some things pertaining to these in which he could instruct his elders. Not a single hunter, trapper, or rover of any kind passed through during the winter months, and they often wondered what was going on in the world without. "I’d surely like to see the Captain again," said Bill Breakstone one cold evening as they sat by their fire. "Just to think of all that he went through with us, and now he’s vanished into thin air. Maybe he’s dead, killed in some battle a thousand miles down in Mexico." "I don’t believe the Captain is killed," spoke up Phil promptly. "I don’t believe that he’s the kind of man who would be killed. But a lot of things must have happened since we left. There must have been some big fighting away down there by the City of Mexico. Do you think we could have been whipped, Bill?" "Phil, I’ve half a mind to take away all your titles without another word," replied Breakstone reprovingly. "How could you think of our being whipped, after what you saw at Buena Vista?" "That’s so," said Phil, his cheerfulness coming back at once. Late in the spring they began the passage of the ranges, and although it was a long, hard, and sometimes dangerous task, they got safely across with all their horses, coming again into a plains country, which merged farther west into a desert. Here they were about to make a great loop northward, around the Mexican settlements, when they met an American soldier carrying dispatches. They hailed him, and, when he stopped, they rode forward, all eagerness. It was deputed to Bill Breakstone to ask the momentous question, and he asked it: "How is the war going on?" The soldier looked at them, amused little crinkles at the corners of his mouth. He knew by their appearance that these were people who had been long in the wilderness. "It isn’t getting on at all," he replied. "What!" cried Bill Breakstone appalled.