Snow on the Trail

Open-range cattle did not come in for the winter. They stayed out on the grass, and a few riders stayed out with them in line camps: a cabin or dugout at the edge of the ranch's range, one or two men to a camp. Their job was riding line. They turned back cattle drifting ahead of storms, pulled weak animals out of drifts and chopped ice so the herd could drink.

In the winter of 1886 and 1887 the system broke. A dry summer and an overstocked range had left thin grass, and then the blizzards came one after another. Cattle died by the thousands across Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. When the owners of a Judith Basin outfit wrote asking how their herd was wintering, the foreman answered with a watercolor by a young cowhand named Charles M. Russell: a gaunt steer in the snow, wolves waiting. It became known as Waiting for a Chinook, after the warm wind that melts snow in hours, and it started Russell's career.

The riders here are having a kinder day. They ride away from us up a trodden trail through snow and sagebrush, both horses breathing white plumes. The storm clouds over the ridge are breaking, letting through a pale yellow light.