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FIVE
    They did not make the ride to Lazy B. For the weather did not break. Or rather the break was of such short duration that it was not really a break at all. When the weak sunshine fell it was as if the yellow light was only offered briefly to light up the havoc wreaked upon the country by winter's first angry blasts. Then the dismally familiar gray clouds once again closed down and another blizzard howled across the range.
    Every man on Wagon was needed to haul hay to the half-starved cattle. They could no longer paw through the snow to reach the grass beneath, because a few hours' thaw would melt the surface of the snow only to have it freeze into a hard crust by a drop in temperature. This, topped by additional snow, made it virtually impossible for even the wise range cattle to find the forage beneath; the few mouthfuls of dry grass required to sustain life.
    Cattle in the breaks fared better than those caught in the open. All were gaunt and tired when and if they managed to drift to the feeding corrals. Josh ordered hay sledded out to the places where it was needed most. This measure saved many, but the draws and cutbacks held many bloated bodies, stiff legs pointing skyward.
    Josh was even more anxious than Kirby about the safety of their brand. "This is the first time I can ever remember trying to make an estimate of winter kill before winter is really here," he told his boss. "We ain't nowhere near covered the range, but we've lost five percent of the critters near headquarters." Two additional blizzards followed swiftly on the snowy heels of the first, and it was more than a month before there was any real break.
    In a way, Kirby was grateful for the weather. He worked, along with the other hands, from first light to pitch dark. There was so much to be done and so little time. The strange weather had made them afraid that the brief periods when the sun shone would not suffice for all the chores to be accomplished… afraid to get too far from headquarters for fear of being caught by another storm.
    There was hay to be hauled, the horses to be cared for. Even the chore of breaking drinking holes in the Clear was a thing to be repeated as soon as the last hole was chopped. The supply of firewood for the cookshed, ranch and bunkhouse needed constant replenishing. Kirby practically lived in the kitchen with Maria and Manuel. This saved the fuel that would have been used to heat the rest of the house. He allowed Manuel to build a fire in his bedroom only late in the afternoon to drive out the damp, and he slept under a mountain of blankets topped by a buffalo robe, too tired to know when he was cold. Temperatures below zero were the rule… the exception came when the reading was above freezing.
    Maria constantly doctored frostbite among the bunkhouse gang, and one puncher was hurriedly sledded in to Streeter after his horse fell and he walked five miles in a growing storm.
    Kirby thus scarcely had time to think of the problems that would come with spring. Dog tired, his face blistered by cold, aching in every muscle, he would stuff down the hot food Maria always had ready, then fall into bed in a stupor until she roused him to begin another grueling day.
    During one of the longer periods of good weather, the crew dared to ride far out on Wagon graze to drive in every animal they could find that hadn't already drifted back to the feeding corrals or had turned his back to the wind and let it carry him to far distant range. For the most part, then, rnuch of Wagon's great herd was fairly close to hay, for which Josh was grateful. "Sure hated to send riders twenty or thirty miles out," he said. "Even with line cabins to fall back on, they were taking a chance. Might not find 'em till spring… if ever."
    Once the cows were within working distance, another problem arose: feed. Haystacks that had seemed so ample in the fall diminished alarmingly. Josh began to issue feed almost in starvation rations, and the sound of cattle