"I don't suppose you could see to the river bank," he mused, "and Gene will certainly tear the third commandment to shreds before he gets the water-hole open."He went over to the window, meaning to scratch a peep-hole in the frost, just as he had done every day for the past three months;lifted a hand, then stopped bewildered. For instead of frost there was only steam with ridges of ice yet clinging to the sash and dripping water in a tiny rivulet. He wiped the steam hastily away with his palm and looked out.
"Good heavens, Gene!" he shouted in a voice to wake the Seven Sleepers. "The world's gone mad overnight. Are you dead, man?
Get up and look out. The whole damn country is running water, and the hills are bare as this floor!""Uh-huh!" Gene knuckled his eyes and sat up. "Chinook struck us in the night. Didn't yuh hear it?"Thurston pulled open the door and stood face to face with the miracle of the West. He had seen Mother Nature in many a changeful mood, but never like this. The wind blew warm from the southwest and carried hints of green things growing and the song of birds; he breathed it gratefully into his lungs and let it riot in his hair. The sky was purplish and soft, with heavy, drifting clouds high-piled like a summer storm. It looked like rain, he thought.
The bare hills were sodden with snow-water, and the drifts in the coulees were dirt-grimed and forbidding. The great river lay, a gray stretch of water-soaked snow over the ice, with little, clear pools reflecting the drab clouds above. A crow flapped lazily across the foreground and perched like a blot of fresh-spilled ink on the top of a dead cottonwood and cawed raucous greeting to the spring.
The wonder of it dazed Thurston and made him do unusual things that morning. All winter he had been puffed with pride over his cooking, but now he scorched the oatmeal, let the coffee boil over, and blackened the bacon, and committed divers other grievous sins against Gene's clamoring appetite. Nor did he feel the shame that he should have felt. He simply could not stay in the cabin five minutes at a time, and for it he had no apology.
After breakfast he left the dishes un-washed upon the table and went out and made merry with nature. He could scarce believe that yesterday he had frosted his left ear while he brought a bucket of water up from the river, and that it had made his lungs ache to breathe the chill air. Now the path to the river was black and dry and steamed with warmth. Across the water cattle were feeding greedily upon the brown grasses that only a few hours before had been locked away under a crust of frozen snow.
"They won't starve now," he exulted, pointing them out to Gene.
"No, you bet not!" Gene answered. "If this don't freeze up on us the wagons '11 be starting in a month or so. I guess we can be thinking about hitting the trail for home pretty soon now.
The river'll break up if this keeps going a week. Say, this is out uh sight! It's warmer out uh doors than it is in the house.
Darn the old shack, anyway! I'm plumb sick uh the sight of it.
It looked all right to me in a blizzard, but now--it's me for the range, m'son." He went off to the stable with long, swinging strides that matched all nature for gladness, singing cheerily:
"So polish up your saddles, oil your slickers and your guns, For we're hound for Lonesome Prairie when the green grass comes."