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How Beaver Paid By George C. Sutherland

"Well, Beaver, old boy, it sure looks like you and me was in for a nasty ride tonight. I don't like the looks of them clouds a little bit. Wish we had started yesterday." Bob MacNeil, the speaker, was a young man of about eight and twenty years. He was clear-eyed, deep-chested, and wore the customary chapps, boots and other paraphernalia of the range rider. Although he spoke in the rough vernacular of the west, five years before he had received his diploma from the forestry department of the University of Michigan. Five years of rough range life, during which he had been associating continually with what Frederick Remington would have called "men with the bark on," had removed a large portion of superfluous polish from his speech and habits. But they had also developed those qualities which are recognized as part of the warp and woof of real manhood. Beaver was a handsome specimen of the western horse crossed with the Morgan, possessing all the sure-footedness and wild instinct of his range-bred ancestors, combined with the gentleness and pride of that well-trained servant of man, the thoroughbred Morgan. His eyes were his most noticeable features, large, brown and lustrous, shining with almost human intelligence. For five years the two had been inseparable companions. During this time they had come to understand each other with that indefinable instinct which comes to men and animals with close association in the big open spaces of the world. The place was one of those isolated regions on the Wyoming National Forest reserve, sixty-five miles from a human habitation. MacNeil had been spending the last few days in looking over the ground where trails were to be built the coming year. Being anxious to cover all the territory possible before snow came, he had remained at his work until his food supply was exhausted. Just a few hours before the opening of our story he had started for Eagle Rock, ninety miles away. The sky was dark with heavy, lead-colored clouds, and the mercury had dropped to within a few degrees of zero. For an hour the wind had been rising steadily and from his lookout MacNeil could see the blizzard spreading rapidly over the country below. Stroking the neck of his horse, Bob leaped into the saddle and Beaver started down the trail in an easy lope.