I jumped forward, and with my knees and hands rolled that savage over as if he had been a log of wood, grabbed the rifle, and started for the stairs. I snatched at the lantern, but missed it and knocked it over. The flame wavered for an instant and went out. Up the stairs in total darkness I swarmed on all fours, dragging the gun by the muzzle, so that had the hammer caught on anything I am sure the bullet had gone clean through my body. I slammed the door at the top, scrambled out a side window where I had got in, and ran across the drifts to the hotel like a scared coyote, sitting down in the office weak as a cat. I expected no less than that he would follow me, but he did not, and I question if he roused up further from his drunken stupor. Looking back I see what a coward I showed myself; but it seemed quite natural at the time. It was this day, March 15th, that there began the big thaw. I could not hope spring had come to stay, and that there would be no more winter weather, but it gave me hope that a train might get through. I needed hope of some kind to keep up my spirits, because I felt that with a little good weather I could look for the Pike gang again. If I could have been sure that the train would come first I should have been gladder to see the thaw than anything else in the world; as it was I wished it might hold off till I could feel that spring had come in earnest. The 15th was warm, but the snow melted very little. The next morning came the chinook. It was straight from the northwest, where all the blizzards had come from, but it was warmer than any south wind. All day it blew, and the snowbanks disappeared as if they were beside a hot stove. Before night there was a hole in the roof of tunnel No. 3. When I went to bed there were patches of bare ground and pools of water in the square. The next morning the chinook was still blowing. It had been eating away at the snowbanks all night. I saw the top of the stronghold haystack from my bedroom window. Tunnel No. 1 had caved in. All day the wind kept up. By night the tunnel system was nothing but a lot of gaping cuts in the snow. The drifts had settled so much that the windows and doors were exposed, and it would soon be possible to ride on horseback along the street.