I could not write yesterday, it was
so awful. People gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing
but the storm. The hunters all kept by the great fire in the
living room, only going out to bring in logs and clear the snow
from the door and windows. I never spent a more fearful night
than two nights ago, alone in my cabin in the storm, with the
roof lifting, the mud cracking and coming off, and the fine snow
hissing through the chinks between the logs, while splittings and
breaking of dead branches, wind wrung and snow laden, went on
incessantly, with screechings, howlings, thunder and lightning,
and many unfamiliar sounds besides. After snowing fiercely all
day, another foot of it fell in the early night, and, after
drifting against my door, blocked me effectually in. About
midnight the mercury fell to zero, and soon after a gale rose,
which lasted for ten hours. My window frame is swelled, and
shuts, apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it.
I had gone to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over
my face. Between two and three I was awoke by the cabin being
shifted from underneath by the wind, and the sheet was frozen to
my lips. I put out my hands, and the bed was thickly covered
with fine snow. Getting up to investigate matters, I found the
floor some inches deep in parts in fine snow, and a gust of fine,
needle-like snow stung my face. The bucket of water was solid
ice. I lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the men
came to see if I "was alive," and to dig me out. They brought a
can of hot water, which turned to ice before I could use it. I
dressed standing in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras
were covered with snow. When I ran to the house, not a mountain
or anything else could be seen, and the snow on one side was
drifted higher than the roof. The air, as high as one could see,
was one white, stinging smoke of snowdrift - a terrific sight. In
the living room, the snow was driving through the chinks, and
Mrs. Dewy was shoveling it from the floor. Mr. D.'s beard was
hoary with frost in a room with a fire all night. Evans was
lying ill, with his bed covered with snow. Returning from my
cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for the day, I was
lifted off my feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things,
writing book and letter included, were carried in different
directions. Some, including a valuable photograph, were
irrecoverable. The writing book was found, some hours
afterwards, under three feet of snow.
There are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one
can hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding. We have been
slightly overcrowded in our one room. Chess, music, and whist
have been resorted to. One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted
himself to keeping my ink from freezing. We all sat in great
cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch
running out of the logs. The isolation is extreme, for we are
literally snowed up, and the other settler in the Park and
"Mountain Jim" are both at Denver. Late in the evening the storm
ceased. In some places the ground is bare of snow, while in
others all irregularities are leveled, and the drifts are forty
feet deep. Nature is grand under this new aspect. The cold is
awful; the high wind with the mercury at zero would skin any part
exposed to it.
October 19.
Evans offers me six dollars a week if I will stay into the winter
and do the cooking after Mrs. Edwards leaves! I think I should
like playing at being a "hired girl" if it were not for the
bread-making! But it would suit me better to ride after cattle.
The men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds - i.e.
"doing for themselves." They washed and ironed their clothes
yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last
performance. I really think (though for the fifteenth time) that
I shall leave to-morrow. The cold has moderated, the sky is
bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who has
joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which
one cannot get through.
LONGMOUNT, COLORADO, October 20.
"The Island Valley of Avillon" is left, but how shall I finally
tear myself from its freedom and enchantments? I see Long's
snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the
magnificence of the blue hollow at its base. We were to have
left at 8 but the horses were lost, so it was 9:30 before we
started, the WE being the musical young French Canadian and
myself. I have a bay Indian pony, "Birdie," a little beauty,
with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with
luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my
saddle, I am tolerably independent. It was a most glorious ride.
We passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the
unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-colored aspens; caught
glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep
sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where two
brothers and a "hired man" were "keeping bach," where everything
was so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman;
crossed a deep backwater on a narrow beaver dam, because the log
bridge was broken down, and emerged from the brilliantly-colored
canyon of the St. Vrain just at dusk upon the featureless
prairies, when we had some trouble in finding Longmount in the
dark.
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