After dinner we moved camp close to the bank of the ravine, where Tom had marked out the ground for our winter quarters. On the opposite bank he had staked out a site for a larger dugout for a stable. The ravine here was narrow, and by a good jump we could clear the water that occupied its bottom. On top of the banks the ground for some distance around was smooth and level, bearing no other vegetation but the short, nutritious buffalo-grass. Pitching our tent in a convenient place for our work, we turned out the stock, picketing the gray mare and Prince. Tom was to ride the "buckskin" bronco to look for a hay-field. Jack and I soon had our coyote and beaver pelts stretched and pegged down on a smooth piece of ground. "I'll try to get back," said Tom as he mounted Vinegar, "in time for you men to go and put out your baits for the night; and in the meantime, while you're resting, you may as well get out the pick and shovel and turn yourselves loose on them dugouts, just to see if you've forgot how to work. You'd better begin on the horses' stable and we'll try to finish that up first, for if a 'norther' should catch us the stock'd be in a bad fix for shelter, while our tent'd shelter us, all right." In a couple of hours Tom returned, reporting that he had found, in a bend of the creek just below us, a large bottom that would afford us all the hay we would want. "Now, men," he said as he unsaddled and turned out the bronco, "we've got lots to do that's pressing us, and, as the wolf poisoning and beaver trapping ain't pressing and won't suffer any loss by waiting a few days, I've been thinking that we'd better let the pelts go for a while and put in all our time at haymaking and digging till we get everything made snug for cold weather." Tom's suggestion seemed so reasonable that we agreed with him and decided to let the pelts alone for a while. Tom got his scythe out of the wagon and "hung" it and then went down to the timber to make a couple of wooden hay-forks. When he had returned from the timber with his wooden forks he remarked as he sat down and began whittling the prongs to points and otherwise smoothing them up with his knife: "While I was at it I cut a lot of poles for a hay frame to put on top of the wagon-box to haul hay on; and I also cut some poles to lay on the ground under our freight when we unload the wagon." Later in the day we unloaded the wagon, piling the contents on the poles inside the sideboards, which we had taken off together, leaving the bows on them. After the goods were thus piled up the wagon-sheet was stretched over the bows and securely tied down and the load was thus protected from the weather. Tired and very hungry after our hard day's work, we devoured our supper and, after agreeing to devote the next day to digging and haymaking, were soon sound asleep. After breakfast next morning Tom shouldered the scythe and his rifle and set out for the hay-field.