For an open-range cowboy, winter work could be very arduous. Not as many men were needed on a ranch during the winter months, so the jobs were usually given to the older or “top” hands in an outfit. Their duties often included feeding undernourished stock, cutting ice to open up water holes, feeding bulls, hauling firewood, and riding line to keep stock from drifting off the range. Each of these cowhands used at least two “winter” horses, strong mounts that could support a rider and a weakened calf, while also driving a cow. Some of the winter hands performed their duties from a line camp, which was usually located on the outer edge of an outfit’s range. Such places were very isolated, as Russell shows in this accomplished watercolor. Two riders, possibly from the home ranch, have ridden through the bitter cold to greet two cowboys emerging from a line shack. The visitors have brought what must be a welcome Christmas repast—a freshly killed pronghorn. The lead rider wears a sourdough coat, a heavy canvas garment that was usually lined with wool fleece, along with heavy woolen chaps to keep out the cold. The frigid temperatures are evident in the horses’ steaming breath, which Russell has skillfully indicated with opaque white watercolor. On the wall of the cabin, two freshly dressed wolf skins reveal another activity that the line camp cowboys performed—keeping roving predators away from the vulnerable stock. Life in a line camp during the Montana winters must have been hard. The danger of severe frostbite was all too real; many cowhands in Russell’s day had parts of their fingers or toes missing to prove it. One contemporary writer recalled a brief visit to a line shack during a bitter cold spell. There was a small wood stove that didn’t give out much heat, but the cowboys told him that the worst thing besides freezing was “thawing out” too quickly with too much heat. That particular day in the line shack, the men could not see the mercury in the indoor thermometer. One of the cowboys told the visiting writer that it only registered down to thirty degrees below zero, so they jokingly referred to it as a “tropical” model.