Snowblind, Clem Holmes stumbled through the blizzard. He dug his hands deep into his coat pockets and bent his head against the wind. Still, he stumbled forward. Silently, he chastised himself for leaving town.

"Greenhorn," he muttered to himself. If he made it home alive, Clem decided, he would consider himself lucky. He could turn back or continue onward. Both choices left him in the same position—in the middle of a prairie blizzard.

The pioneer plodded onward, his boots crunching through the compacting snow. He gazed through the swirling whiteout and blinked. A slight illumination penetrated the greyness. Blinking again, Clem rubbed his eyes. His icy mittens did little to clear his eyesight. An accumulation of snow and frost clung ruthlessly to his brows and lashes.

"Home!" Clem muttered, his frozen lips barely forming the word. The lantern Clara placed in the window would guide him back to his family.

The homesteader hastened his footsteps, and the light brightened. When he reached the shanty, he pressed his face against the glass and peered inside. Somehow, the small room seemed different. However, he blamed the difference in his faded vision. Clem stepped up to the door and pulled the latchstring. Then, he practically fell inside.

Dropping his mittens on the floor, Clem stretched his fingers toward the stove's warmth. His skin tingled as he flexed each digit. His coat joined his mittens on the floor, and he plopped into the rocking chair. Hitching it closer to the fire, he felt his frozen skin begin to melt.

"Jess!" he hollered, "Come and help your Pa with his boots."

His eldest daughter delighted in removing his footwear and rubbing his swollen feet. Since she grew old enough to pull them off, it became her job. Clem enjoyed the moment of comradery between father and offspring. Although Jessica became more remote since their frontier move, she still retained her joy in the small task.

"Jess?" the father asked when the girl did not appear. "Jess?" His voice grew perplexed.

Suddenly, Clem became aware of the shanty's silence. No one busily prepared for the evening meal. The empty rocker did not contain his sullen mother. Maimie's paper dolls didn't clutter the floor. Rising, he looked around the room. Then, he sunk into the chair and covered his face with his hands.

A single cot stretched along the wall behind the stove. Harnesses hung from the south wall, and a plow leaned beneath them. An Evan's repeating rifle awaited a hasty retrieval over the door. The shanty smelled of stale, musky uncleanliness.

The lean-to door swung open as Clem reached for his coat and mittens. A man's bulk shadowed the small room. Clem clutched his outer gear to his chest and backed toward the front door.

"Who are you?" a deep-throated voice barked. "What are you doing here?"

"Begging your pardon," the anxious pioneer stuttered. "I thought this was my claim. I walked to town this morning and thought to beat the blizzard home. I apologize..."

The shanty owner stepped further into the dimly lit room. Clem's eyes flew wide open in recognition. Unwittingly, he'd stumbled into Whacky Jacky Dryden's shanty. As he backed toward the door, the other occupant advanced.

'Of all the places to stumble upon!' Clem's mind raced. How did he get so far off track? The Holmes' claim lay west of town, Dryden's to the southeast. When he left the general mercantile earlier that afternoon, he headed along the road toward his own home.

The storm wind buffeted him off-course. Step by step, he drifted further to the south and east without realizing it. If he hadn't staggered into Dryden's claim shanty, Clem would have become hopelessly lost. Out of options, he realized he had to stay put. He could not return to bleakly wandering the stormy prairie.

Nervously, Clement Holmes appraised the frontiersman. Jack Dryden claimed to have found gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848. The fortune he panned out of the South Fork American River disappeared at the poker table. His colorful stories—told in the saloon--included killing a claim jumper and fighting Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Clem did not wish to hang around to find out if they were true.

Clem clung between facing the blizzard and bunking in with Whacky Jacky. Longing for his cozy home, he reached for the latch and lifted it. Propping his shoulder against the door, he pushed against the raging wind.

"I'm not one for interlopers, son," Jack Dryden gruffly announced, "but you best stay put. Who are you? If you're staying, I'd like to know what to call you."

"Clem...Clement Holmes," the pioneer stuttered weakly. "My wife and kids are on a claim west of town. I was trying to beat the blizzard."

"Fool!" Jack spat out. "Damn tenderfoot!"