The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-26
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born said the quiet man from Dakota.
No man can face it in its strength and
live. The brute lies down before it. and
the face Of nature covers under its
snow blanket as though frightened at
the awful calamity that the white death
brings"
He stopped and seemed to be studying
the whirling clouds of snow that filed
the avenue. I suppose this seems like
a fearful storm to you2" he said, half
| interrogatively, to the half-dozen men
who Rugged the open CRATE about him,
! and God knows it is bad enough to
those who have to suffer, but I've seen
worse He paused again and gave a
puff at his pipe, a curious carved thing,
but it had burned itself out, and he
held it a moment in his fingers with u
| kind of caressing touch. I'VE have
Weathered more than one blizzard to-
gether, old girl he said TO himself, then
emptied the ashes and put the pipe
away in its case in his inside pocket.
You think, then, that the blizzard is
the product of Dakota?" remarked one
of the men.
Yes. there it is born, on the immense
treelesS mesas, and here is the scene
of its most awe-inspiring grandeur.
more southern ATTITUDES. but it is on the
northern plains that you witness that
most terrible of all natures manifesto
lions, and feel it in all the complete
ness of its devastating wrath. Like
something from spiritland, the snow
falls some night. after a day that has
made you glad that You are alive it is
so full of mellow sunshine, so full of
promise for a month of soft winds,
balmy air and springs sweet promise.
In an hour, stretching away TO the far
north in almost limitleSS expanse. the
snowfall wastes present Il scene of ut
ter deSolation and drearv gloom. Down,
degree by degree, the temperature falls,
until the bitter, mercileSS cold has turn
ed the whole land to stone. Not sound
disturbs the great wilderness of rock
and snow. Not a stain di;cclors the
dead. dazzling wilderness If the lanG-
scape. The evergreen that cluster in
the canyons look like snow Wreaths.
The great white arms of the giant COT
tonwoods on the edge of the mesas
shake their white fingers against the
blue-white sky with a weird, fantastic
motion that chills the heart of one who
sees them. They are becaoning to the
White Death.
Up from the horizon. like a ball of
fire from which the soul of its life has
fled ages ago, rides the sun. and frost
sprites dance merrily IN IFS patch and
form a sparkling train behind. Along
the horizons rim creeps another shape,
gray-robed and siille7 Y eats ami eats
and creeps and creeps closer and closer
TO the cold day god, swallowing up the
frost sprites. and filling the air with a
mist like breath, which gets down to
your very vitals. with its icy touch.
The wind begins to gather strength,
and the weird, white fingers of the cot
tOnwoods limned against the sky. clasp
and clutch at nOthingness in ghoulish
transports. The breath of the creeping
co d, gray shape turns to feathery fakes
of snow. and they sail slowly to earth
on the last cold sunbeam. The wind
blows colder and colder, and the snow
flakes become smaller and denser. Cold
eC yet, and the snow spitS in your face
like teh sting from a thousand scor-
pions, and the prick of a million need
les. There is an ominOus silence for a
brief space. Then there comes a long.
low moan, like the expiring breath of
a lost soul. 1t fills the sky and air
Above and below you hear it. 1t changes
to a sob, then TO a wall that scars the
heart of your memory so deep that
sleeping or waking, you never forget it.
Then it shrieks in its gathering intensi-
ty, and hows in maddened rage.
The travail is over, and the blizzard
is bornI
THE snow that changed to sleet is
now transformed into infinitesimal par
ticles of ice and, driven by the wind
that beats and pummels space, they cut
like raZors and cleave like teasels. The
tiny particles become part and parcel
Of the garments YOU wear and hasten
your undoing. The mercury shrinks
away from the frozen blast, till at last
it. too, freezes, and its pitiless tale be-
comes it's own epitaph.
God, how the storm demons ragei
They below and bawl, they scream and
hiss, they snarl and screechl Daylight
fees affrighted and q supernatural
gloom enfoids the earth like a black
ness of despair. The blizzard is full
grown. and all the lost souls in the in
ferno seem TO be helping crown it King
of Terrors, whose title is the White
Death
at plows across the prairies, and men
go down before it's icy breath as before
a Mitrailleuse. With their hands on
the latch OF their own doors, they fall,
and the drifting diamond-points cover
them from sight in the space Of a
heartbeat The billiards. breath forms
sepulchre and sere-cloth and cenOtaph.
The brute instinct of self-preserva-
ton gives way to terrified inaction, and
the beasts turned loose to drift with
the storm, wild and tame, meet on COM
mon ground, and dumbly facing the in
evitable, fall in their tracks, whence
they have not stirred since they scent
ed the awful catastrophe with heads in
air. and the plaintive cries of fear in
their poor brute threats.
Through illimitable space shrouded
in gloom that is impenetrable, the fu-
ries go shriekIng and bowling, moan
ing and sobbing in DEVILS chorus that,
if long continued, would drive even the
safely-housed to desperation 1t sounds
like a miserere for those mercilessly
cut off from life and love. Like witch's
Incarnation, Like the defiant rage of
the damnedl The agonizing walls of
lost souls The sounds met and mingle;
they fight and tussle for the mastery
like the snarlings of the angry. and
add new terror to the battling ele-
ments.
Day and night for week. perhaps,
the forces of nature rage and the reign
of the White Death is absolute. All
the storms of all the ages gathered in
one day would be but puny STRIPPING
to a Sampson compared with the awful
devastation of the White Deaths de-
mons. Then the morning of the new
day dawns with the sun as warm and
caressing as the kiss of a lover. The
wind has gone to sleep, and the storm
king is dead. All the world is white,
sparkling and coruscating. the air is
crisp and sweet, and again it seems
good to be alive. But we who have met
the White Death face to face have not
to ask where his victims are laid The
mounds of heaped up snow that dot the
mesas tell the story. and whitening
bones. like fodder in a corral. will warn
all corners for years to beware of the
White Death"
o<D go
Does This Strike You?
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