Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1897-03-20
HOW THE CHINOOK COMES.
Even the Cattle in Montana Re0oGs
nike Its First Breath.

Even the Cattle in Montana Reoo91
ntHe Its First Breath.
Picture to yourself 4 wild waste Of
snow, wind-beaten and blizzard-fur-
rowed until the vast expanse resembles
= billowy white sea. The frigid air,
blowing half gale, is filled with needle
like and ice crystals which sting the
flesh like the bites of poisonous in
sects, and sift through the finest crew
ices. The sun, low down in the SOUTH
ern horizon, looks like a frozen globe,
with halves, crescents and bright pris-
matte bars encircling it.
Great herds of range cattle, which
roam at will and thrive on the nutri-
tious grasses Indigenous to the north
ern slope, wander aimlessly here and
there, or more frequently drift with the
wind in vain attempts to find food and
| shelter; moaning in distress from cold
and hunger, their noses hung with
bloody icicles, their legs CALLED and
bleeding from breaking the hard snow
crust as they traveIthey appeal to the
hardest heart for pity. 1t is sure death
for human beings to be caught out in
one of these awful billiards., with the
| temperature down to 80 or so degrees
| below zero, unless rescue is speedy.
Yet such conditions frequently exist in
|
November, 1896, when it seemed as if
the elements had conspired to bring
about another ice age, and annihilate
every living thing.
Would the "chinook" never come?
| The wind veered and backed, now howl
ing as if in derision, and anon becoming
calm as if in contemplation of the DESC
lation on the face of nature, while the
poor, dumb animals continued their
ceaseless tramp, crying with pain and
| starvation. At last, on December 1, at
| about the hour of sunset, there was a
change which experienced plainsmen
| interpreted as favorable to the coming
| of the warm southwest wind. At sun
set the temperature was only IS degrees
below zero, the air scarcely in motion.
\ but occasionally seeming to descend
from overhead. Over the mountains in
the southwest a great bank of black
clouds hung, dark and aHesome, whose
wide expanse was unbroken by line OIL
break; only at the upper edge the
curled and serrated cloud, blown into
tatters by wind, seen to be the ad
vance courier of the long prayer-fol
chinook" How eagerly we watched
it's approach! How we strained oul
hearing for the first welcome sight o,
the gentle breath! buC II was nOC un
til 1885 p. m. that the first influence
was felt. First, a puff of heat. summer
like in comparison with what had exist
ed for two weeks, and we run to our in
strument shelter to observe the tenn
perature. UP goes the mercury "a de
grees in seven minutes. Now the wine
has come with 25-mile velocity. Now
the cattle stop travelling, and with muz
zleS turned toward the wind, low witt
satisfaction. Weary with two weeks
standing on their feet they lie down il
the snow; for they know that their sal
walton has come; that now their bodies
will not freeze to the ground.
The wind increases in strength ant
warmth; it blows now in one stead.
roar; the temperature has risen to 3
degrees, the great eXpanse of snow, 3
inches deep on a level, is becoming dam
and honeycombed by the hot wind, an
we retire, satisfied that the chinook
is a genuine and lasting one.
Twelve hours afterward there are bar
brown hills everywhere; the plains ar
covered with floods of water. In a fey
DAYS the wind will evaporate the mois
ture, and the roads will he dry and hare
, Were it not for the chinook" wind
the northern slope country would no
, be habitable, nor could domestic an
mails survive the winters.-U. s. Weatl
er Review.