Cold weather? You're talking about cold weather?
My great-grandfather on my momma's side, William Wilson Spencer, was a sure-enough old time cowboy who rode in some of the cattle drives from Texas and Oklahoma up north to the Dakotas and Montana. Usually he had the good sense to make it back home to Texas before winter, but one year--I think it was in the latter 1880's--a rancher offered him cash money and found to stay the winter and help look after the stock at the home ranch. He accepted and settled in.
Things went well enough through the Autumn, and he figured he'd take it easy during the long winter and come Spring he'd collect his wages and head on back to Texas with enough of a stake to maybe get his own little spread. But the winter turned brutally cold and soon he was miserable and cussing himself for agreeing to stay in Montana. But travel back to Texas was impossible until the Spring thaw, so he determined to make the best of an icy situation. He had a warm bed, decent food, a string of four horses, and a cow dog he called Ol' Shep. Yeah, life could have been worse.
But the winter did grow worse, one of the worst in local memory. Streams froze solid, ice formed in the treetops and limbs came crashing down, wildlife and cattle starved and froze to death because they couldn't break through the crust of frozen snow to get to the dried grass below. But ol' Will Spencer persevered. He did his job, breaking up ice with an axe so the cattle could get to water, hauling hay to the herds scattered far from the home ranch, and spending the long winter nights in the company of two other cowhands, the cook, and Ol' Shep.
At long last each dawn was a few moments earlier than the previous. The ice covering streams and ponds seemed just a bit thinner than what Will broke up the morning before. Then one day there were actually a few fitful trickles of water dripping off the roof above the kitchen. Winter was gradually, reluctantly, losing its grip.
It was about that time a truly strange and remarkable incident happened, one my great-grandfather Will always swore was true. While tossing some hay to his horses in the stable he heard the excited barking of a dog...it sounded like Ol' Shep's bark, but the cowdog was right there with him and was silent. Will stepped outside to look for the source of the barking but it seemed to come from every direction. Ol' Shep trotted out beside him...looked all about...whined...and ran back inside the stable. Will was puzzled, unable to determine where the barking came from, and at the same time almost dead certain it was his own dog's bark. At last the barking faded away and Will went back to work.
The phenomenon re-occurred some three or four times over the next few weeks, always during the day, as the Sun pushed back the frozen remnants of a brutal Winter. Finally there was no more mysterious barking.
Old Will pondered and wondered about these strange goings-on, until finally he figured out what had happened. You see, that Winter was the coldest, the cruelest, the bitterest in Montana history. The land froze hard. The icy air seared the lungs if you were foolish enough to breathe it with your face uncovered and unprotected. And that was the cause of the barking. During the dead of that Winter, it was so cold that whenever Ol' Shep would bark, his barks just naturally froze, and you had to wait 'til they thawed to hear them.
Spring and Fall are way too short (I don't care when Spring or Fall hit, just that they hit on a weekend).
