The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-10-19
From Dickens "AI The Year Round "
THE CEUSoE OF THE SNOWY DESERT

Late in the autumn of the year eighteen
Hundred and fifty -one Mr.. Baldwin Mollhuu-
sen, Prussian traveller. ursu ng his investi-
cations in Northern America. had occasion TO
make return journey across the Roxy Noun
tains to the Missouri. lie stirred with one
C m ,auion only, and with three horses-and Il
mule, FOR riding and fer carrying TIE baggage.
S;clnty fodder. Indian tIeachcry, and the
fearful cold OF those snowy regions, produced
the frat disasters of the travellers, by depriving
them of the services of all four aiilna s.
Their last horse was killed hy exposure to an
icy gale, at spot in the miserable wilderness
c:.lled Sandy Hill Creek. Here. that
their last means of getting forward had failed
them, tEey were compelled to stop. at criod
of the year when every succeeding day mi ght
be expected to increase the horrors of the cod.
and the chances OF death by starvation in the
prairie wastes.
They had a little Indian tent with them. and
they Set it up for shelter. They had also a
small supply of bad buffllo meat. rice, and In :
dian corn On this they existed miserably fer
u few days, until the Post from Fort kearn1 y
to the Flat River happened to pass them.
With all the will to rescue both the travel
ers, the Post did not possess the power. 1t
aas barely possible for the persons in charge of
it-their own lives depending on their getting
rapidly. and outstanding their provisions
to make room for one man in their little vehicle
drawn by six mules The other man would
have no help for it but remain behind with the
goods alone in the wilderness, and to keep him.
self alive, ifit possible. in that dreadful po-
sition, until the Post could send horses back
for him from the Catholic Mission, eighty or a
hundred miles off
In th.s emergency-an emergency of life or
death if ever there was one yet-the travellers
aeresd on drawing lots to decide which man
was to be rescued and whicL. man was to re-
main. The lot to remain fell on Mr.. MOllhau-
sen.
The Post resumed it's journey at once, with
the rescued traveller SOU ezed into the little
carriage. Mr.. Molhausen watched the de-
parture of the vehicle till it WAS out of sight,
till he was left alone, the one living being in
the white waste-the Crusoe of The snowy des-
ert. He had three chances, not OF lie, but of
death. Death by cold, death by the murder
Gus treachcry of savaycs; ceath by the teeth
of the wolves which prowlcd the wilderness by
night. But he was brave man, and he faced
his imminent pcrls and his awful Loneliness
with II stout heart.
He was well supplied with arms and ammuni-
ton; and the first thing he did when the lost
left him was to look to these. His next p o.
cceding was to make use of snow Oh the earth
to keep out the snow from the heavens by
raising white wall, fir ly stamped all round
his little tent. He then dragged up supply
nf wood from the river near at hand, and piled
it before his door. His fire place WAS hollow
in the ground. in front oi his bed of blank is
and buffalo hides. The food he possessed to
cook ut consisted OF buffalo meat and rice
He had also some coffee Tkcs- provisions, on
which his feeble chance OF life depended, he
carefully divided into fourteen days rations,
L. I. - u Il p
the furthest, he might Look for help from the
Mission. The sum of his preparations was
now complete He fed his fire, set OH h s food
to cook, and crept into his blankets TO wait for
the coming of night-the first night alone i'll
the desert.
After time, the silence and the solitude
weighed upon him so heavily. that he soue hit
some kind OF comfort and companionship in
trying to ia k to himself; but, in that torlnrn
situation. even the so Iud of his own voice made
him ST. uddcr The sun sank TO its setting be-
hind snow clouds; its last rays were trembling
redly over the wilderness of white ground,
when the howl of the Ives came down upon
him on the ;cy wind. They were assembled in
a ravine where the traveller S last horse had ial-
len dead, some days before Nothing was left
of the animal but his polished bones and the
rings of his harness, and over these bare ,el-
les of their feast the ravenous creatures wrang-
led a. d yelled all night long. The deserted
man listened to them i'll his tent, tried to while
away the unspeaknbe oppression of the dark
hours by calculating their varying numbers
from the greater or lesser volume of the howl
ing sounds that reached him. Exhaustion
overpowered his faculties, while he was still al
his melancholy work. He slept till hunger
dwoke him the next day, when the sun was
high again in the heavens.
He cut a notch in the pole of his tent tc
mark that one day was passed. 1t was then
the sixteenth eighteenth of Mo- eniber; and
by Christmas he vainly believed that he would
lie "a e at the Mission. That second was very
weary; and his strength was failing him al
ready When he dragged up the wood and
water to his tent his feet were lame, and he
staggered like drunken man. sta
Hopeless and hungry, he sat down on hi,
bed, flied his pipe with willow leaves the bes
substitute for tobacco that he possessed anc
smokedr in the warmth of the FIRE with h !.