but made poor progress through the drifted snow. It was almost two o'clock the next morning when he passed the letterbox at the trail to the Widow Miller's place. The moon had gone down behind the trees to the west and it was quite dark, but here the wind had swept the ground bare of snow, and his progress with his rather jaded animals was much better.
Sleepy and tired from his long ride Gibson reached the ranch and rode into the warm stable to unsaddle. There to his great surprise he found he had but one animal behind him, the rope which had been around the mule's neck still dragging at the pack horse's tail, a mute evidence of what had happened.
"Hm, shucks," he commented grimly, "won't them there boys in the bunk house give me particular hell for this night's work?"
Wearily he unsaddled and unpacked the horses. Still more wearily he dragged himself up the path to the house, stirred the fire in the fireplace into a blaze, and when the coffee was hot drank a cup, ate greedily of the food which the cook had left for him, crawled into his blankets and in ten seconds was dead to the world.
In his dreams he was swinging a rosy cheeked girl through the steps of an old-fashioned quadrille, she being attired in a most gorgeous watermelon-pink sweater.
"Swing yer pardners, swing agin;
Kiss the darlings – if you kin."
He essayed the kiss only to be awakened on the verge of its attainment by a heavy hand on his shoulder, followed by a voice which demanded in no soft tones, "Where's your Christmas plunder?"
He sat up in bed half dazed by his night's experience.
"Come alive, Bill; come alive, an' tell us about the things for the kids. We can't find them nowhere."
Gibson yawned and rubbed his eyes in a vain attempt to delay the castastrophe which he knew would encompass him when he told of the loss of the pack mule.
Before he dropped off to sleep he had planned to get an early start in the morning back on his trail to try to find the lost animal. Popgun had been bought from the widow soon after her husband's demise and he shrewdly guessed that the tired, hungry mule would most likely strike direct for his old and nearby home.
He sprang from bed and grabbed his clothes.
"Hm, shucks," he began. "I reckon I done lost the mule coming home. Had him tailed up to old Paint and just about the time I passed the trail into Widder Miller's place Paint set back on the lead rope and like to pulled the saddle offen old Mack, me havin' the rope tied hard and fast to the nub. He let up in a minute and come along all right and I'm a figuring 'twere just about there that Popgun gits loose, he probably havin' been leaning back on the pack hosse's tail a right smart causing Paint to pull back hisself. Popgun likely stripped the rope over his head and being about all in turned off down the trail to the widder's and it's dollars to doughnuts he's a eating hay in her shed right now. Me being tired and sleepy I never sensed the loss till I gits here with the mule's rope a dragging along still tied to Paint's tail. Hm, shucks, I'll find him or bust a shoe string."
"An' to think they have to go all the way back to Afriky to git ivory when there's such a lot of it to be had nearer home," was the sarcastic comment of the foreman.
From the windows of the Widow Miller's cabin the whole world seemed wrapped in a mantle of white. Down along the creek in the meadow the rose bushes and willows poked their heads above the snow. Changing their skirts for overalls, she and Nancy soon picked a couple of quarts of the brilliant red berries or fruit of the rose bushes. That night as soon as the children were safely in bed they started in on their Christmas tree preparations. Several days before Nancy had slipped out into the timber and cut a small spruce which she dragged to the stable and hid under some loose hay, and with an empty canned goods case and some stones they managed to make a very satisfactory base for it. Over the coals in the fireplace they popped a huge dish-pan full of corn and worked late into the night stringing popcorn and the rose berries with which to festoon the tree.
"I've seen my mother use cranberries for the same thing," she told her sister, "but these rose berries look quite as well I think."
From the pages of a mail order catalogue they cut figures from the brilliantly colored fashion plates which, pasted upon stiff cardboard and hung to the tips of the branches, made famous decorations.
Festooned with the long strings of rose berries and popcorn, with these gaily painted ladies of fashion dangling from every bough, it made a very satisfactory Christmas tree. After placing upon it the presents for the children which they had been able to buy or make, together with a few apples and oranges, some stick candy, each done up separately in paper, "just to make it seem more," Nancy said, the two women retired for the night.
How long she had slept or what awakened her, Mrs. Miller could not tell, but as she strained her ears for the slightest sound, she imagined she could hear outside the footfalls of some heavy animal. She knew it could be no bear, for whatever it was the snow was crunching under its feet, nor was it a human, for the steps were those of a four-footed object.
The moon, that earlier in the evening had flooded the valley until it was almost as light as day, was now just dipping behind the mountain to the west, throwing the stable into deep shadow, from which the sounds now seemed to come.
There was a bare possibility of its being some range cow, although they had all long since drifted down into the lower country, but she finally decided it must be one of the big bull elks which regularly wintered on the wind-swept sides of the mountain above them and sometimes came down to the ranch seeking feed during times of heavy snow.
Shivering with the cold she crept back to bed realizing that daylight would soon come. Rudely her dreams were broken by a sound that at first froze the very marrow in her bones, but which with immense relief she instantly realized could come from the throat of but one animal and that, a mule.
Fortunately the children slept through it all, and dressing as quickly as they could, she and Nancy started for the stable, Mrs. Miller armed with her automatic.
No sooner had they stepped from the porch than the mule that had been hanging about the stable trying to get in spotted them and greeted their coming with a series of brays and nickerings that showed his joy at seeing some human being.
It was Popgun, the pack still on his back. Leading him to the cabin the women quickly loosened the diamond hitch, took off the canvas pack cover and piled the kyacks upon the porch after which he was placed in a vacant stall in the stable and fed.
To the women versed in frontier ways and signs the solution of the visit from their long-eared friend was simple, and they sized up the situation almost exactly as it had occurred. Therefore they felt certain some one would be on his trail before very long.
The rattle of the pack rigging on the porch aroused the children, and when the women returned from the stable the two older ones were investigating the pack.
Bidding them not to meddle with the things, Mrs. Miller and her sister went inside the house to get breakfast leaving the kids on the porch. Childish curiosity could not well be stifled, especially on such a day as this. They had been told stories of the coming of Santa Claus and while Jimmie had learned that a reindeer looks very much like a bull elk he had once seen, he also knew that all sorts of things could be packed in a pair of kyacks and knew no reason why Santa should not have availed himself of that means of transporting his gifts under certain conditions.
To loosen the straps that held the kyack covers was an easy matter. To lift up the heavy canvas covers was still easier and the first thing that met the eager eyes of both children was a long tin horn nested down in some excelsior. As he pulled at it a fluttering tag caught his eye. On it he read: "For James – Merry Christmas."
