The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1897-08-28

A Rocky mountain solitude majestic
In its awesome desolation, with the 10y
wind bowling, whistling, roaring
through the gorges and the canyons and
dashing itself with frenzied fury
against the mighty rocks that rose on
all sides, sheer and steep and black,
save where the flying snow had found
ledge or tree stem on which to fas-
ten its ghostly pail. A mountain tor
rent, flinging itself headlong into space
from a dizzy height Of hundreds of
yards, had become monstrous fantas-
tic sheet of grayish ice, against which
the patches of snow which it bore stood
out dazzling white. The forest giants
bent and cracked beneath the force of
the tempest, and their bare branches,
reft from the mother stems, whirled
through the snow sodden air like huge
uncanny ravens.
No sound or sign of man or beast or
bird of the air in the midst of this
CHASTITY, wailing, raving, storm monot-
ony, save one figure that moved slowly
and painfully through the binding hur-
ricane
Where the rough, snow covered pla-
teau inclined prairieward and the
mountain wilderness seemed to stretch
gigantic arms toward the vast plains
that lay like white sea at itsfeet, barely
perceptible through the thick, snowy
haze, a tall man climbed across the dam
gerous broken ground. The snow lay a
yard deep everywhere, and every now
and then treaeherous chasm between
the uneven bowlders threatened terri
BILE death. The hidden tangle of unseen
creepers, stripped of all foliage, and the
naked briery network of the underbrush
mingled in snaring pitfalls beneath the
covering snow, like vast web of prick
covered whip cord, ready to punish each
unwary step.
The man appeared to be accustomed
to the dangers which would have af-
frighted many stanch and stout heart.
He seemed to be fashioned OF iron, with
a face of glass, against which the
whirling snowfakes dashed harmlessly.
His long hair olung to his neck and
shoulder like wave of snow, with here
and there patch of black in the midst
of the white powdering foam. His
beard resembled the frozen waterfall
for its grotesque covering of icicles, and
his brown buckskin clothing was cover
ed with brittle patches of CLASSY gray.
There was naught visible of his face
save his shining black eyes, for he had
tied red cotton handkerchief across
his nose and mouth, and it had become
a frozoYn 10 tl,o <1f l.se I1At
ing.
The man climbed ON down hill un-
daunted. Many a time he slipped and
staggered and fell, but rose again, pant
ing and now and then suppressing a
low moan that surged to his throat in
spite of him. The rags which he had
tied over his hands showed broad red
stains through their dingy frozen folds,
and he limped more and more painfully
as he proceeded ON his awful journey,
but not sound escaped him. He might
have been suffering dumb creature
struggling for life against the murder
Gus fury of the elements.
At last tie ground sloped more even
ly, the fiendish webwork of naked brier
and creeper ceased to impede the foot,
and, save for the sheet of snow, yard
deep, through which the man had to
wade, progress was easy and unobstruct-
ed.
At sudden turn of the mountain,
nestled against towering spur of the
foothill which sheltered it from the
fury OF the wind and surrounded by
some threescore of leaf1ess cottonwoods,
the traveller espied the low, snow COW
cred roof of a human habitation. The
smoke curled away Justify from its clay
chimneys, and the warmth of the fire
beneath had melted the white shroud
which covered the rest of its slopes, and
thus revealed the brownish yellow lay
er of clay and prairie grass which had
served for tiles in its construction.
The man strobe on, as with a new
heart, as the near proximity of life and
warmth strengthened his stiffening
nerves. His failing sight grew keener,
and he even thought that sensation of
existing presence, painful, yet reassur-
ing, returned to his nearly frozen hands
and arms. The huge projecting hillside
deadened to him the blast of the tenn
pest, which still ragged and rioted over
head, to waste its now victimless fury
until, in its widening sweep, it touched
the barren, rolling plain far inland.
The desperate journeyer had reached
level ground, and some 800 or 400
strides brought him to the log hut that
lay so snugly ensconced in the protect
ing shadow of the mountain. The wind |
had piled a small hillock of snow
against its side, and no window or open
ing of any kind was visible. The man
plodded his weary way around the back I
of the house where the warmth of the
chimneys had transformed the snowy
covering of the plain into a swamp of
slush, and, again turning the !
corner, reached the side where the
thickly clustered cottonwoods had af-
forded stanch screen against the drift.
ing flakes. Here the rough bark covered
logs and the clay filled crevices were
still in pristine greenish brown, save
Tor few white ridges and lines. The !
wind was denied its play !
ground here. The daring pioneer had
20 cunningly planned and constructed
his house that he defied the elements to !
bar lngress or egress to or from his
wild homo. /
The rough plank. door was open when
'he shiyering traveller at last reached it.
On the threshold stood tall and lean
'id man, his grayish, pale face sur
founded by long gray beard and with
/ veil of sperse silvary ba;. ,traco,;,.