Winter had come and we, John Buchan, Will Carson, and myself, had chipped in almost our last dollar and brought a wagon load of flour, bacon and canned goods from Saguache to the foot of the mountains, then carried them on our backs to the cabin. We quit work on the mine for ten days and chopped firewood, which we corded at the rear of our house. All hands felt that we were as snugly housed for the winter as the big grizzly bears in their lairs among the rocks. Snow had been falling for several days and it lay deep on the mountain slopes and in the wide expanse of the valley below. We had not had an assay for two weeks and all were anxious for another report from Amos. Buchan wanted his mail also, and he took a small bag of the rock and tramped the twenty-five miles to Saguache. It was a three days' trip wading through the unbroken snow drifts, and it was night when he returned, weary, footsore and angry. I can see him yet, tears trickling down his honest face, as he tried to tell something about Amos. He spoke of "the scamp, the villain, and robber," and then choked with rage. Like all Scotchmen, the more he thought of the wrong done him, the angrier he became; he would be more angry tomorrow and it would be the day after that his anger would reach the climax, and begin to subside. This was not a peculiarity of Buchan. It is a characteristic of the Scotch. We made him a cup of coffee and seated him comfortably before the fire. When he calmed down somewhat, he explained. "The first thing I did the next morning after reaching Saguache, was to eat breakfast, and then I took the samples of ore to Amos' assay office. He was garrulous as usual, and said to come in two hours and he would have the certificate of the assay ready for me. When I again called he handed me the certificate and I paid him the usual two dollars and fifty cents. It showed nine dollars and ninety cents to the ton. The usual increase of ten per cent. over the last assay. "I crossed over to the postoffice, and while waiting for my mail, I noticed the snow standing ten inches high on the cap of the flue of Amos' assay furnace. I thought, how in the deuce did he assay our ore without melting the snow on the cap of the flue? The more I thought about it the more I was mystified. I went across to his office and said, 'Amos, I suppose you gave us the usual fire test on this ore?' 'Yep,' he answered. 'Then tell me,' I cried, 'how in the devil did you make the fire test without melting the snow off the cap of your furnace flue?' 'Too cold to melt,' he replied. "Then I rushed past him into the back room. The furnace was cold and the frost had gathered on the iron door. I don't suppose there had been a fire in it for a week. I took Amos by the whiskers and told him to own up that he had not made a fire test of our ore. Then he acknowledged that he had been guessing at it all along." "You don't mean there is a doubt about us having pay rock?" we yelled in a chorus.