THAT night the big snow storm did indeed come, and when Roderick woke up next morning it was to find mountain and valley covered with a vast bedspread of immaculate white and the soft snowflakes still descending like a feathery down. The storm did not catch Mr. Shields unprepared; his vast herds were safe and snug in their winter quarters.

The break in the weather marked the end of Roderick’s range riding for the season. He was now a stock feeder and engaged in patching up the corrals and otherwise playing his part of a ranch hand. And with this stay-at-home life he found himself thinking more and more of the real mission that had brought him into this land of mountains. Nearly every night when his work was finished, he studied a certain map of the hills—the inheritance left him by his father. On this map were noted “Sheep Mountain,” “Bennet Peak,” “Hahn’s Peak” and several other prominent landmarks. From his own acquaintance with the country Roderick now knew that the lost valley was quite a distance to the south and west from the Shields ranch.

Thus the wintry days wore on, and with their passing Roderick became more and more firm in his determination to be ready, when the snow was gone in the spring, to take up his father’s unfinished task of finding again the sandbar abounding with nuggets of gold. Indeed in his life of isolation it gradually came about that he thought of little else by day and dreamed of nothing else at night. Sometimes in the solitude of his room he smiled at his loneliness. What a change from the old college days—from the stir and excitement of New York. During the winter he had been invited to a score of gatherings, dances, and parties, but somehow he had become taciturn and had declined all invitations.

Then, with stern self-control he had succeeded in putting out of mind the mysterious beauty of the range. Love at first sight!—he had laughed down such silliness, and rooted out of his heart the base treason that had even for a fleeting moment permitted such a thought. Yes, there was nothing but firmest loyalty in his mind for Stella Rain, who was waiting for him so faithfully and patiently, and whose letters cheered him and filled him with greater determination than ever to find the lost mine.

His labors on the ranch were arduous but his health was excellent. At college he had been an athlete—now he was a rugged, bronzed-faced son of the hills. His only recreations were laying plans for the future and writing letters to Stella.

Not infrequently his mind wandered back to Keokuk, the old river town, and his heart grew regretful that he had quarreled with his Unde Allen Miller, and his thoughts were tender of his Aunt Lois. Once he wrote a letter to Whitley Adams, then tore it up in a dissatisfied way, returning to the determination to make his fortune before communicating with his old friends.

And so the winter passed, and spring had come again.

It was one morning in early May, just after he had finished his chores, when to his surprise Grant Jones shouted to him through the corral fence: “Hello, old man, how is ranching agreeing with you, anyway?”

“Fine,” responded Roderick, “fine and dandy.” He let himself through the gate of the corral and shook hands with Grant. “Come up to the bunk house; seems mighty good to see you.”

“Thanks,” responded Grant, as they walked along. “Do you know, Warfield, I have been shut up over on the other side of the range ever since that first big snow-storm? I paddled out on snowshoes only once during the winter, and then walked over the tops of trees. Plenty of places up on the Sierra Madre,” continued Grant, nodding his head to the westward, “where the snow is still twenty to thirty feet deep. If a fellow had ever broken through, why, of course, he would have been lost until the spring.”

“Terrible to think about,” said Roderick.

“Oh, that’s not all,” said Grant with his old exuberant laugh. “It would have been so devilish long from a fellow’s passing until his obituary came to be written. That is what gets on my nerves when I’m out on snowshoes. Of course the columns of the Doublejack are always open to write-ups on dead unfortunates, but it likes to have ‘em as near as possible to the actual date of demise. Then it’s live news.”

“Sounds rather grewsome,” said Roderick, smiling at Grant’s oddity of expression.

Arriving at the bunk house, they were soon seated around a big stove where a brisk fire was burning, for the air without was still sharp and the wind cutting and cold.

“I can offer you a pipe and some mighty fine tobacco,” said Roderick, pushing a tray toward him carrying a jar of tobacco and half-a-dozen cob pipes.

“Smells good,” commented Grant, as he accepted and began to fill one of the pipes.

“Well, tell me something about yourself, Grant. I supposed the attraction over here at the ranch was quite enough to make you brave snowstorms and snow-slides and thirty-foot snowdrifts.”

“Warfield,” said Grant, half seriously, between puffs at his pipe, “that is what I want to talk with you about. The inducement is sufficient for all you suggest. She is a wonder. Without any question, Dorothy Shields is the sweetest girl that ever lived.”

“Hold on,” smiled Roderick. “There may be others in the different parts of the world.”

“Is that so?” ejaculated Grant with a rising inflection, while his countenance suggested an interrogation point.

“No, I have no confessions to make,” rejoined Roderick, as he struck a match to light his pipe.

“Well, that’s just what is troubling me,” said Grant, still serious. “I was just wondering if anyone else had been browsing on my range over here at the Shields ranch while I have been penned up like a groundhog, getting out my weekly edition of the Dillon Doublejock, sometimes only fifty papers at an issue. Think of it!” And they both laughed at the ludicrous meagerness of such a circulation.

“But never mind,” continued Grant, reflectively, “I will run my subscriptions up to three or four hundred in sixty days when the snow is off the ground.”

“Yes, that is all very well, old man. But when will the snow be off? I am considerably interested myself, for I want to do some prospecting.”

“Hang your prospecting,” said Grant, “or when the snow will go either. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Oh, as to whether anyone has been browsing on your range?” exclaimed Roderick. “I must confess I do not know. They have had dances and parties and all that sort of thing but—I really don’t know, I have not felt in the mood and declined to attend. How do you find the little queen of your heart? Has she forgotten you?”

“No-o,” responded Grant, slowly. “But dam it all, I can’t talk very well before the whole family. I am an out-door man. You give me the hills as a background and those millions of wild flowers that color our valleys along in July like Joseph’s coat, and it makes me bubble over with poetry and I can talk to beat a phonograph monologist.” This was said in a jovial, joking tone, but beneath it all Roderick knew there was much serious truth.

“How is it, Grant? Are you pretty badly hit?”

“Right square between the eyes, old man. Why, do you know, sitting over in that rocky gorge of Dillon canyon in the little town of Dillon, writing editorials for the Double jack month after month and no one to read my paper, I have had time to think it all over, and I have made up my mind to come here to the Shields ranch and tell Dorothy it is my firm conviction that she is the greatest woman on top of the earth, and that life to me without her is simply—well, I don’t have words to describe the pitiful loneliness of it all without her.”

Roderick leaned back in his chair and laughed hilariously at his friend.

“This is no joking matter,” said Grant. “I’m a goner.”

Just then there came a knock at the door and Roderick hastily arose to bid welcome to the caller. To the surprise of both the visitor proved to be Major Buell Hampton.

Major Hampton exchanged cordial greetings and expressed his great pleasure at finding his two young friends together. Accepting the invitation to be seated, he drew his meerschaum from his pocket and proceeded to fill from a tobacco pouch made of deer skin.

“My dear Mr. Jones and’ Mr. Warfield,” he began, “where have you been all through the winter?”

“For myself, right here doing chores about twelve hours per day,” answered Roderick.

“As for me,” said Grant, “I have been way over ‘yonder’ editing the Dillon Doublejack. I have fully a score of subscribers who would have been heartbroken if I had missed a single issue. I snow-shoed in to Encampment once, but your castle was locked and nobody seemed to know where you had gone, Major.”

Jones had again laughed good-naturedly over the limited circulation of his paper. Major Hampton smiled, while Roderick observed that there was nothing like living in a literary atmosphere.

“If your circulation is small your persistence is certainly commendable,” observed the Major, looking benignly at Jones but not offering to explain his absence from Encampment when Jones had called. “I have just paid my respects,” he went on, “to Mr. and Mrs. Shields and their lovely daughters, and learned that you were also visiting these hospitable people. My errand contemplated calling upon Mr. Warfield as well. I almost feel I have been neglected. The latchstring hangs on the outside of my door for Mr. War-field as well as for you, Mr. Jones.”

“Many thanks,” observed Roderick.

“Your compliment is not unappreciated,” said Grant. “When do you return to Encampment?”

“Immediately after luncheon,” replied the Major.

“Very well, I will go along with you,” said Grant. “I came over on my skis.”

“It will be a pleasure for me to extend the hospitality of the comfortable riding sled that brought me over,” responded the Major with Chesterfieldian politeness. “Jim Rankin is one of the safest drivers in the country and he has a fine spirited team, while the sledding is simply magnificent.”

“Although the jingle of sleigh-bells always makes me homesick,” remarked Roderick, “I’d feel mighty pleased to return with you.”

“It will be your own fault, Mr. Warfield, if you do not accompany us. I have just been talking to Mr. Shields, and he says you are the most remarkable individual he has ever had on his ranch—a regular hermit They never see you up at the house, and you have not been away from the ranch for months, while the young ladies, Miss Barbara and Miss Dorothy, think it perfectly horrid—to use their own expression—that you never leave your quarters here or spend an evening with the family.”

“Roderick,” observed Grant, “I never thought you were a stuck-up prig before, but now I know you for what you are. But there must be an end to such exclusiveness. Let someone else do the chores. Get ready and come on back to Encampment with us, and we’ll have a royal evening together at the Major’s home.”

“Excellent idea,” responded the Major. “I have some great secrets to impart—but I am not sure I will tell you one of them,” he added with a good-natured smile. The others laughed at his excess of caution.

“Very well,” said Roderick, “if Mr. Shields can spare me for a few days I’ll accept your invitation.”

At this moment the door was opened unceremoniously and in walked the two Miss Shields. The men hastily arose and laid aside their pipes.

“We are here as messengers,” said Miss Dorothy, smiling. “You, Mr. Warfield, are to come up to the house and have dinner with us as well as the Major and Grant.”

“Glorious,” said Grant, smiling broadly. “Roderick, did you hear that? She calls you Mr. Warfield and she calls me Grant. Splendid, splendid!”

“I know somebody that will have their ears cuffed in a moment,” observed Miss Dorothy.

“Again I ejaculate splendid!” said Grant in great hilarity, as if daring her.

“It is a mystery to me,” observed the Major, “how two such charming young ladies can remain so unappreciated.”

“Why, Major,” protested Barbara, “we are not unappreciated. Everybody thinks we are just fine.”

“Major,” observed Grant with great solemnity, “this is an opportunity I have long wanted.” He cleared his throat, winked at Roderick, made a sweeping glance at the young ladies and observed: “I wanted to express my admiration, yes, I might say my affection for—”

Dorothy’s face was growing pink. She divined Grant’s ardent feelings although he had spoken not one word of love to her. Lightly springing to his side, she playfully but firmly placed her hands over his mouth and turned whatever else he had to say into incoherency.

This ended Grant’s declaration. Even Major Buell Hampton smiled and Roderick inquired: “Grant, what are you mumbling about?”

Dorothy dropped her hand.

“Oh, just trying to tell her to keep me muzzled forever,” Grant smiled, and Dorothy’s cheeks were red with blushes.

With this final sally all started for the big ranch house where they found that a sumptuous meal had been prepared.

During the repast Barbara learned of the proposed reunion of the three friends at Encampment, and insisted that her father should give a few days’ vacation to Mr. Warfield. The favor was quickly granted, and an hour later Jim Rankin brought up his bob-sled and prancing team, and to the merry sound of the sleigh-bells Major Buell Hampton and the two young men sped away for Encampment.

It was arranged that Roderick and Grant should have an hour or two to themselves and then call later in the evening on the Major.

Roderick was half irritated to find no letter at the post office from Stella Rain. In point of fact, during the past two months, he had been noticing longer and longer gaps in her correspondence. Sometimes he felt his vanity touched and was inclined to be either angry or humiliated. But at other times he just vaguely wondered whether his loved one was drifting away from him.