The snow was above my waist, and I bumped into trees and fell over buried logs

before I reached the building. The long hall was in darkness. I knew that most of the boys were out on duty. What if no one were there! I knew my strength was

about used up, and that I could never cross the railroad tracks to the Superintendent's house.

I went down the long cold hall knocking on every door. Nothing but silence and

plenty of it. I reached the door at the end of the hall and knocked. Instantly I remembered that room belonged to Rees. His dog, waiting to be taken down into

the Canyon, leaped against the inside of the door and went into a frenzy of howling and barking. I was panic-stricken, and my nerve broke. I began to scream. Ranger Winess had slept all through my knocking, but with the first scream he developed a nightmare. He was back in the Philippines surrounded by

fighting Moros and one was just ready to knife him! He turned loose a yell that

crowded my feeble efforts aside. Finally he got organized and came to my rescue. I told him Rees was dead and gave him the Chief's message.

"All right. I'll get dressed and attend to everything. You better get back to bed."

I informed him I would not move an inch until I had company back through the

darkness. He then took me home, and went to make arrangements.

I called the Chief and told him Ranger Winess was on the job. Then I tried to sleep again. Coyotes howled. Rees' dog barked faintly; a screech owl in a tree near by moaned and complained, and my thoughts kept going with the sad news

to the little home Rees had built for his family in Utah.

Strange trampling, grinding noises close to the window finally made me so nervous I just had to investigate. Taking the Chief's "forty-five," which was a load in itself, I opened the rear door and crept around the house. And there was a poor hungry pony that had wandered away from an Indian camp, and found the

straw packed around our water pipes. He was losing no time packing himself around the straw. I was so relieved I could have kissed his shaggy nose. I went

back to bed and slept soundly.

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Chapter VII: A GRAND CANYON CHRISTMAS

Funny how one can never get over being homesick at Christmas. Days and weeks and even months can pass by without that yearning for family and home,

but in all the years since I hung my stocking in front of the big fireplace in the old home I have never learned to face Christmas Eve in a strange place with any

degree of happiness. I believe the rangers all felt the same way. Several days before Christmas they began to plan a real "feed."

We had moved into our new house now, and it was decided to make a home of it

by giving a Christmas housewarming.

The rangers all helped to prepare the dinner. Each one could choose one dish he

wanted cooked and it was cooked, even if we had to send to Montgomery Ward

and Company for the makin's. Ranger Fisk opined that turkey dressing without

oysters in it would be a total loss as far as he was concerned, so we ordered a gallon from the Coast. They arrived three days before Christmas, and it was his

duty to keep them properly interred in a snow drift until the Great Day arrived.

Ranger Winess wanted pumpkin pies with plenty of ginger; White Mountain thought roast turkey was about his speed. Since we would have that anyway, he

got another vote. This time he called for mashed turnips and creamed onions.

The Superintendent, Colonel White, being an Englishman, asked plaintively if we couldn't manage a plum pudding! We certainly managed one just bursting with plums. That made him happy for the rest of the day.

I didn't tell anybody what I intended to have for my own special dish, but when

the time came I produced a big, rich fruit cake, baked back home by my own mother, and stuffed full of nuts and fruit and ripened to a perfect taste.

All the rangers helped to prepare the feast. One of them rode down the icy trail to Indian Gardens and brought back crisp, spicy watercress to garnish the turkey.

After it became an effort to chew, and impossible to swallow, we washed the dishes and gathered around the blazing fire. Ranger Winess produced his omnipresent guitar and swept the strings idly for a moment. Then he began to sing, "Silent Night, Holy Night." That was the beginning of an hour of the kind of music one remembers from childhood. Just as each one had chosen his favorite dish, now each one selected his favorite Christmas song. When I asked

for "Little Town of Bethlehem" nobody hesitated over the words. We all knew it better than we do "Star Spangled Banner!" I could have prophesied what Colonel White would call for, so it was no surprise when he swung into "God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay." Fortunately, most of us had sung carols in our distant youth, and we sang right with the Colonel.

Someone suggested that each one tell of the strangest Christmas Day he or she

had ever spent. For a while none of us were in Arizona. Ranger Winess was in a

state of siege in the Philippines, while the Moros worked themselves into a state of frenzy for the attack that followed; Ranger Fisk scaled Table Mountain, lying back of Capetown, and there picked a tiny white flower which he had pressed in

the Bible presented to him there that day; each sailor in port had received a Bible that day with this inscription: "Capetown, Africa, Christ's Birthday, December 25, 19—." White Mountain snowshoed twenty miles in Yellowstone to have Christmas dinner with another ranger, but when he got there he found his friend

delirious with flu. "Did he die?" we questioned anxiously. Ranger Winess and the Chief looked at each other and grinned.

"Do I look like a dead one?" Ranger Winess demanded.

"I couldn't let him die," White Mountain said. "We had just lost one Government man, mysteriously, and hadn't any more to spare. So I got his dogs and sledge and hauled him into Headquarters."

Of course we wanted to know about the "lost" ranger. It seemed that there had broken out among the buffalo herd in the Park a strange malady that was killing

them all off. An expert from Washington was en route to make a study of the ailment, and was due to arrive just before Christmas. Days passed into weeks and still he didn't show up. Inquiries to Washington disclosed that he had started as per schedule. Tracing his journey step by step it was discovered that on the train out of Chicago he had become ill with flu and had been left in a small town hospital. There he had died without recovering his speech, and had been buried

in the potter's field!

"Well, then what happened to the buffalo?"

"Washington sent us a German scientist. We loved that nation just about that time, and on his arrival diplomatic relations were badly strained. He was too fat and soft to use snowshoes or skis, so we loaded him on a light truck and started for the buffalo farm. We stalled time and again, and he sat in lordly indifference while we pushed and shoveled out. We seemed hopelessly anchored in one drift,

and from his perch where he sat swaddled up like a mummy came his 'Vy don't you carry a portable telephone so ve couldt hook it over the vires and call for them to come and pull us oudt?' One of the rangers replied, 'It would be nice for us to telephone ourselves to please pull us oudt. We are the them that does the pulling around here.'

"The old boy mumbled and sputtered but rolled out and put a husky shoulder to the wheel, and we went on our way rejoicing. He won our respect at the buffalo