Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-11-09
A NIGHT ATTACK.
An Adventure with Hungry Beasts
 in tho Rockies.

lar army and who was one of the rescu- ing party with my brother, has asked me to put on record the experience of that fearful night. I undertake the task with reluctance, because in the first place there is little or no instruc- ton or moral weight in such work, and in the second place I recall that in cident only with Q feeling of horror and an unpleasant beating of the heart However. by noting one or two peculiar phenomena of nature a thing or two may be set down worth remem- bering, and by hastening over the | horrible part much of the latter may be | avoided.
 The winter of 1869, in which Idaho and Montana were born, was the most terrible that has ever been experienced west of the Rocky mountains for forty l years There has been but one winter that at all approached it in length and breadth and awful battling of the ele- | mentS. That was the winter of 1857, when the Indians, made desperate by hunger, rose up one night in Pitt river valley. butchered all the white people and then helped themselves to the cat ! tie.
 But the winter of 'e2i It simply tore down mountains. To this day as you sail up the Oregon coast you see great gray and white blotches on the face of the black mountains fronting the ocean, where the forest was melted loose and was sent plunging by sections down into the sea-
 They call them the buffalo wolves; why, don't know. I never saw this gaunt and hungry black phantom in the buffalo lands. think he belongs entirely to the snow and only crosses the Canada line when driven down by such terrible winters as the one re- ferred to. My notion is that the fa- nous buffalo wolf was or is but little better than the coyote; better bred, be- cause better fed, perhaps; stronger in limb and lung; but at best only dog of wolf Anyhow, 1t Is an insult to the whole wolf family to call a coyote wolf He is only an Indian dog He is no more a wolf than is prairie dog l a canine.
 But there is gray wolf with us that even the foster mother of Romulus and Remus would not have been ashamed to acknowledge as of kin. He is born and bred of the woods. Yes, I know | you may find him in the midst of the | plain, miles, hundreds of miles, away | from his habitat. He will calmly sit by and let the Indian dog, the coyote, chase down deer, elk or buffalo, and then step in and preside, master of the feast.
 The snow had blocked the wheels of the world. The civil war was booming and raging along the whole line of the eastern states, and the boys in the mines, showed in, frozen up, they wanted to know; they must know, don't you see. had spent winters in the snows of Mount Shasta. Yes, could and would walk from Walla Walla to Millersville in Idaho, with a load of letters and papers on my back tor the snow-bound boys. Over two hundred miles! Ike Mossman, my | partner, now in Oakland, walked with me the first one hundred miles, to Lewiston, and could go no further. A lot of men were waiting there to go with the express, ns usual They dropped behind, in fragments, and who n night fell and still kept on, the last two of the lot touched a match to a rcsinous bark of tamarack that stood by, the glcaming, glittering trail of snow on the mountain side, and shook their hats and shouted in manly admir- ation, though they could go not foot | farther.
 You sec, l had to cross Camas prairie that night eighteen miles, while the snows crust was like steel. An hour of sun on this vast and gleaming sea of tracllless snow-it is great wheat field now-and you would sink in the snow to your knees.
 made it without a mishap or strug. gle of any sort; came up to the noun l Tl- with the morning star and awakened the men buried down there in the lit tie cabin ten feet under the snow with the Modoc warwhoop.
 Only twenty miles more and would be with the boys in the mines. They had been good to me, and I thanked God that I had strength and skill to serve them now. What welcome l should receivel I was more than gold to them, as they ofteE used to say. They had only gold for me, but for they had the world-letters; love. The fellows at the station took the greatest care. No. I should eat noth- ing at all at first; only coffee, then 8 crust, then beef broth and onions
 meat at last; and by the great roaring fire fell asleep as ate, and an Indian
 "lIh OkCA pdlllS IuDDSu SWO11cI
 feet and legs
 Hours and hours and hours of sleep and then, half awake, lying full length
 with feet to the fire on the bearskins
 Half awalse2 aye, more than wide
 awake, and the sun settled his account
 with the world and went his way.
 too, must be off. My big leather bae
 of letters fitted me like huge jacket
 good armor against cold, bullets, wint , and-wolves?
 had six-shooter in my left hand
 and small derringer nestled down il ,. each flank. had encountered nothing
 at all the night before to alarm me
 True, a band of coyotes blocked thu . trail at the edge of the woods, eating " some carcass in the snow; but hat [, gone around and saved time an' l. trouble. I was ready to do the sam l now for the old huOfar who left tb,