Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-02-26
WHAT A "BEIZZARD Is.r
Grsphfo Description by One who
Knows whereof He Speaks.

"The papers want to know what a
blizzard is, and they turn up their
noses ut the word, but them as has been
thar can see where the joke comes in.
I've shook hands with one or two biz
yards. and here's the afiidavies TO prove
He drew off his boots. Three toes
were missing from the right foot, and
the big toe alone remained on the left.
Two fingers were gone from the left
hand, one ear shriveled out of shape,
and his nose seemed to have no life in
1t. He was a rough looking old chap,
and he was warming his heels on the
steam-pipe in the cabin Of ferryboat
along with sever al other passengers.
Well, what Is a blizzard ?" asked
on his boots.
Whats the weather here, to-dayT
Two below"
"Well, you add five or six degrees Of
cold to it. take off your clothes and walk
around for three hours, and you'll have
u slight comparison. A blizzard haint
'zactly two-edged sword nor bullet,
but 1t lives next door TO 'em. You'd
better twice over be cotched in tor
nado. I'd take the chance of outrunning
II prairie fire quicker'n livin' through a
Jinuary blizzard"
Tell us about EN-"
THE fust one ! ever seed,n said the
old man as he held up the stumps of his
missing fingers, was down in Nebraska,
close to the west line. / had a rancho.
and was well fixed. The livin' room
Tor me and three herders was about
twenty feet squar', with big stove In
the middle. On the fourth day of Jinu-
ary, 1859, there wasn't a flake of snow
on the ground, and at four o'clock in the
afternoon 1t was warm enough TO 20 in
my shirt sleeves. Half an hour before
the sun went down the sky was clear
and blue. stood looking off at a herd
of horses, feelin' as il I wanted to 90
bariut, when all at once a shiver
climbed over me. II was as If ice
water had been poured down my back.
There was a moanin', roarin' sound
away to the westward, another shiver.
and the next mint it was dark and the
blizzard had come. Quicker than can
tell you the sky turned black, night set
in, and mountains of snow come
boomin' along before a gale blowing
eighty miles an hour"
Welle" said some one as the old man
paused.
wall, there she was. That blizzard
was born in the Rockies. She'd whirled
round and round, gettin' stronger every
mint. lifted herself out of some awful
canyon, tore along the crags and peaks,
and finally tumbled down on the level
and started eastward, mad as a grizzly
and powerful as n million runaway
horsesi Them three herders weren't
half n mile away, and nj. mounted, but
yet only one reached the cabin. The
other two were struck as dumb and
numb as If hit with cannon balls, and
they weren't out of their saddles a mint
before they were covered with six in
ches of snow"
Must have been coldr'
"Cold! Mebbe il wasn't I didn't
have no thermometer to look at, but
didn't want one. Our jug of whisky
froze solid and split the jug in ten minits.
Frost settled on the taller candle within
an inch OF the light. Every board in
the rancho cracked and popped with
cold. We had big stove, but the fuel
was mostly under a shed fifty feet away
] thought to go after.a load. but as
opened the door / fell back as if ten
thousand needles had been fired into my
face. That one breath of the blizzard
iroZe my nose and ear"
Yes. in half an hour I burned up
stools. benches, tables and all else that
would burn, but after midnight the fire
went out. Then lost my toes-frost-
bitten even when / was dancing over
the fioor. Ours was tight cabin, and
yet there was foot of snow on the floor
before daylight. The awful wind drove
it through the crcvice Did you ever
hear the gale which goes with bliz-
zard? Well, you'll face a cannon sooner
than hear IL n second time. The wind
screamed louder than n locomotive
whistle. 1t ragged and raved like a
giant in chains, and it struck down
every livin' thing il came to. All a:
once 1t would stop blowin' for half a
mint, and the stiffness would he awful.
Then I'd hear sighin' and Proanin' afar
of, as II poor lost children were cryin'
for home. Then the groanin' would
change to n screech-the screech to D
wild shrek. and the gale would whirl
round and round the cabin as If bound
to lift 1t from the earth in its teeth.
That gale knocked over trees hundre ID
years old. and rolled rocks weighing n
thousand tons down upon the lcvell"
And about your stockr
when that blizzard struck my ranch
had 500 cattle 1900 sheep and about
200 HOSES, all alive and kickin'. II died
away about daylight. and after an hours
| work we got out of the cabin and
through the snow. Far as the eye
could reach nil was dead level.
Clutches, ravines and dips had been
filled up with from five to thirty feet of
snow. Every horse, sheep and steer had
gone down in his tracks 10 die and be
coffined in white. and we two. frost
bitten and frozen, were fifty miles from
any white man. Don't sneer at bliz-
zard! You'd better meet a thousand
she tigers !'-DfErod Free Press.
A Whlstling iiuey.
A naxu hunv has l.-au In xra,,fad l,x, NJ