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Updated: June 2, 2025
In the way of a roast, on the plains, a saddle of venison was the possible extreme, and the occupants of the line-camp possessed a ruddy health which promised appetites to grace the occasion. Christmas day dawned under ideal conditions.
If the country was open, you would see Al Woodruff riding at some distance from the trail or you would not see him at all, if there were gullies in which he could conceal himself. He was always "line-riding," or hunting stray stock horses, usually or striking across to some line-camp of the Sawtooth on business which he was perfectly willing to state.
"The fellows all like a good story and it don't sound any worse because it's on Dick. And say! I kinda got a clue to where he connected with that whisky. Walt says he come back from the line-camp with his overcoat rolled up and tied behind the saddle and it wasn't what you could call a hot night, either. He musta had that jug wrapped up in it.
He would have stayed even in the face of the change that had come to the range-land but he could not bear to see the familiar line of low hills which marked the Double-Crank and, farther down, the line-camp, and know that Flora was gone quite away from him into the North.
The light advanced slowly, a sifting frost filled the air, obscuring the valley, and not until the slope to the south was reached was the situation known. No cattle were in sight or adrift. Within an hour after leaving the line-camp, the experienced eye of Sargent detected a scattering trace where an unknown number of cattle had crossed the line.
Half the crew rolled their beds and rode elsewhere to spend the winter, returning, like the meadowlarks, with the first hint of soft skies and green grass. Jim Bleeker and a fellow they called Spikes moved over to the Bridger place with as many calves as the hay there would feed, and two men were sent down to the line-camp to winter.
The Pilgrim was already two days late with the supplies he had been sent after because he was not to be trusted with the duties pertaining to a line-camp and Billy had not the wide charity that could conjure excuses for the delinquent. "I'll let you wash the dishes," promised Miss Bridger generously. "But I'll cook the supper really, I want to, you know. I won't say I'm not hungry, because I am.
There was the line-camp with which to keep in touch; he must ride often to the Bridger place or he thought he must to see how they were getting on. It worried him to see how large the "hospital bunch" was growing, and to see how many dark little mounds dotted the hollows, except when a new-fallen blanket of snow made them white the carcasses of the calves that had "laid 'em down" already.
After building the line-camp and long before occupying it, the quartette paired off, Sargent and Dell claiming the new dug-out, while the other two were perfectly content with the old shack at headquarters. A healthy spirit of rivalry sprang up, extending from a division of the horses down to a fair assignment of the blankets.
It struck me that I hadn't been a circumstance, so far, to what dad must have been in his youth. At my worst, I'd never shot a man. The Quarrel Renewed. That night, by a close scratch, we made a little place Frosty said was one of the Bay State line-camps. I didn't know what a line-camp was, and it wasn't much for style, but it looked good to me, after riding nearly all day in a snow-storm.
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