title: A Cowboy's Christmas Gift: The Legend of Aurora Borealis
author:  Katherine Hardin 
description: Katherine has spent a lifetime riding fine horses and roping cattle; it might be considered the love of her life. Now she writes about the ranch lifestyle, creating pictures through words for everyone to enjoy the things she so loves. Riatas and Roundups is her first publication, telling an assortment of cowboy style poetic stories, followed now by "A Cowboy's Christmas Gift. The Legend of Aurora Borealis"
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  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
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  SUSIE ROLLIFFE'S CHRISTMAS
  
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  # SUSIE ROLLIFFE'S CHRISTMAS
  
  
  ### E. P. Roe
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  Picnicking in December would be a dreary experience even if one
  
  
  could command all the appliances of comfort which outdoor life
  
  
  permitted. This would be especially true in the latitude of Boston
  
  
  and on the bleak hills overlooking that city and its environing
  
  
  waters. Dreary business indeed Ezekiel Watkins regarded it as he
  
  
  shivered over the smoky camp-fire which he maintained with
  
  
  difficulty. The sun was sinking into the southwest so early in the
  
  
  day that he remarked irritably: "Durned if it was worth while for it
  
  
  to rise at all."
  
  
  Ezekiel Watkins, or Zeke, as he was generally known among his
  
  
  comrades, had ceased to be a resident on that rocky hillside from
  
  
  pleasure. His heart was in a Connecticut valley in more senses than
  
  
  one; and there was not a 