“No!”

Then a strange thing happened. From what Francis knew of Mr. Grimes, he half expected the trapper to go off and leave him alone. Or hit him on the head and carry him.

Mr. Grimes dismounted, hunched his back into the wind, and smiled.

“I do declare, Mr. Tucket, you sure do pick the funniest times to be stubborn. I just hope that when I get down, you’ll be this hot about staying around with me …”

Francis realized he was crying. He wasn’t sure why. He was tired, but he had won—at least sort of won. There was a lot of snow, and a lot of wind, and he was cold—but it wasn’t that kind of crying. He just felt choked. He turned away.

“And now, Mr. Tucket, if we’re ever going to see what the world is like after this humdinger, we’d better get to work. Help me get these horses around.”

Mr. Grimes put all the horses, nose-to-tail, in a tight circle. Then he cut the beaver pelts loose from the Indian ponies and put the packs in the middle of the circle of horses.

“Now hobble ’em,” he said, tying a piece of lead rope around one of the ponies’ front ankles. “Hobble ’em tight.”

Francis worked fast. In no time, all the horses, including his own, were hobbled tight—front and rear.

Then Mr. Grimes went around the circle on the outside and began pushing the horses over, toward the center. When he was done, all of them were lying on their sides, with their backs leaving only a small circle of empty space around the beaver pelts. Mr. Grimes went around and pulled all the horses’ front and back legs together and hog-tied them. Now they couldn’t get up, no matter how hard they tried.

“And now, Mr. Tucket, why don’t you and me catch up on a little sleep?”

Stepping over the horses to the center, he motioned Francis to do the same. They cleared off the snow in a little empty space, and began covering it with beaver pelts cut loose from the packs.

They used almost half of the two hundred near-dry pelts, fur-side up, and when they’d finished, the circle of space was completely covered with warm fur. They lay down and covered themselves with the remaining pelts.

It was a cozy, warm place. The horses’ backs gave off heat and stifled the sound of the wind. Francis was almost asleep as he put the last pelt in place. In a few seconds, just as he was drifting off, he heard the hoarse snore of the mountain man next to him.

——— Chapter Twenty ———