and thoroughly comfortable.

It was good to have a rest -- and peace. But nothing
is quite perfect in this life, at any time. I had made a
pipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco;
not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use:
the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comforts
had been in the helmet, and now I had them again, but
no matches.

Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact
was borne in upon my understanding -- that we were
weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his
horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was not
enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait