Lost in the Blinded Blizzard Read Online Free PDF Page B

breakfast: a cup of cold day-old coffee and a peanut-butter sandwich.
    He dug his sheeplined coat and five-buckle galoshes out of the closet, put on his warmest gloves and his wool cap with the ear flappers, and headed for the door.
    He slipped the bottle of medicine into the pocket of his sheepline and turned to us. “Come on, dogs, we’ve got work to do.”
    If I’d had a couple of minutes, I probably could have thought of a few things I’d rather do than go out into that cold blowing snow. I mean, it was pretty nasty outside, and there was never any question about whether or not we dogs would ride in the back of the pickup.
    We rode in the cab with Slim.
    We hadn’t gone more than fifty yards down the road before we hit a deep drift. Slim had to get out and lock in the front hubs, and then we started out again in four-wheel drive. The county road up to Loper’s place had already begun to drift over. The wind was blowing hard, straight out of the north, and we couldn’t see much of anything.
    Slim had to hold his head at an angle to see out the windshield. “Boys, this storm is worse than I thought. I can’t find the road. If I’d a-known it was blowing this hard . . . boys, I’ve got a feeling that we ain’t going to make it.”
    All at once the pickup seemed to be sliding down­ward and tilting sideways, and Drover and I were sitting in Slim’s lap, so to speak.
    He shifted gears and gunned the motor, but we didn’t move.
    â€œWell, I’ve done it now,” he said. “We’re off in the ditch and this is the end of the line. And Hank, you stink!”
    He pushed me away and tried to open his door, but it was wedged against a snowdrift. He opened the door on the right side, pitched us out into the deep snow, and crawled out behind us.
    Say, being out in that storm was a little bit scary. I mean, you couldn’t see more than 25 feet in any direction and the wind was blowing so hard that it took your breath away.

    For the first time, I noticed lines of fear on Slim’s face. “Dogs, we have got ourselves in some trouble. If we can’t find our way back to the house, we could be crowbait.”
    That’s all it took to send Drover into a nervous breakthrough. “Oh Hank, I don’t want to be crowbait and I’m too young to be a widow, and I’m so cold I just don’t think I can make it and . . . oh, my leg!”
    â€œCome on, dogs,” Slim said, “stay close to me and don’t get lost. We’ll foller the barbed-wire fence as far as she goes, and then we’ll have to strike out and walk into the storm—and hope we can find the house.”
    He waded and stumbled through the snow that had drifted into the ditch, and climbed up the bank on the other side until he reached the fence. He turned the collar of his sheepline up against the wind and started walking east, holding the top wire in his left hand.
    Drover and I followed. I mean, Slim didn’t need to worry about ME sticking close to him. All of a sudden that storm had made me feel pretty small and insignificant, which ain’t exactly a normal feeling for your Heads of Ranch Security.
    The snow was so deep, I couldn’t walk in it, had to hop from one spot to the next. It was even harder for Mister Squeakbox, since his legs were only half as short as mine. Or half as long, I guess you could say.
    Anyways, he was sawed-off at the legs. He’d try to walk on the top crust of the snow, don’t you see, and that would work for a while, but then he’d break through and disappear.
    It was tough going for him, and since Drover has never been one to suffer in silence, I got to hear all about it: he was freezing, he was tired, his nose was cold, his ears were cold, he was going snowblind, he’d lost the feeling in his stub tail, and his leg hurt, of course.
    I got tired of hearing it. “Drover, dry up, will you?”
    â€œI