The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1900-03-24
A Storm Adore the Clouds
By Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston.
ST. NICHOLAS Gen. Frederick

y ST. NiCHOLAS zen. frederick
Funston tells of a terrible days
experience in fighting a storm above
the clouds in the Front range of
mountains in Colorado. 1t was ten
panion in his adventure, Mr.. Vernon
n. Kellogg, now a professor in Stan
ford university.
Despite the difficulties of the way
and the surrounding storm, we made
good progress upward, and in half an
working along the side of the u
tain.
Here our trials began in earnest.
The storm was upon us in all its fury.
The wind blew almost a hurricane,
and the air was so filled with sleet
and fine snow that it vas impossible
to see more than 90 yards in any di-
rection. There would be an occasion
al lull in the tumult. when we could
take in our surroundings for a mo-
ment, but another cloud would en-
velop us and fill the air with driving
torrents of frozen mist.
Hour after hour we struggled on
with the nervous, frantic energy born
of desperation.
The rocks and snow were covered
with ice thin as tissue paper, which
caused many a hard fall and made
every step a source of peril. The force
of the wind, too. threw us down on
tinually, and we were bruised from
head to foot. If we had carried steel
pointed poles instead of guns they
would have been of great service; the
latter were now as much hindrance as
help, though we were soon to find
them useful.
Our hands and faces suffered ter
ribly from the bitter cold and the
former were so numb that we dropped
our guns repeatedly. Hair and cloth
ing were matted with ice like a coat
of mail. We realized that our prog
ress was very slow. as we had 10 yet
reached the great snow field extend
ing from timber line to the summit.
the base of which we had crossed in
ascending the gorge. On and on we
staggered, feeling our way over the
slippery surface, and becoming weak
er every moment from the hard strug-
gle in the rarified air of the mountain
tops.
While stumbling over a mass of ice
covered powders, 1 heard an excited
exclamation and. looking up. saw Kel-
logg sink down behind a rock which
afforded a slight shelter from the icy
blast.
When l reached him he looked up
and said: "Old boy. this is the worst
box we were ever in. | guess we're
at the end of our rope!" Both real
lied that the situation was desperate,
almost hopeless. There was no sign
of abatement of the storm. and weak
ened and enfeebled as we were by the
long struggle. if we should not be able
to cross the steep snow field when we
reached it. death from exhaustion and
exposure would be a matter of only
a few hours.
We dreaded to think of that snow
field, remembering how steep it had
looked as we gazed upward from the
bottom that morning. and knowing
the condition it must be in now with
the newly-formed ice on the surface.
However. it was thought best to rest
a short time, and l lay down by KEEL
iogg.
After a short rest of about Is min
utes we resumed the struggle. weak
as before, and much colder; but we
had recovered our wind. a hard thing
to keep at this altitude.
It was now four o'clock-ten hours
since we left camp, and four since the
struggle with the storm began. The
battle for life could not last much
longer.
Slowly and painfully W. pushed for
ward. crawling on all fours most of
the time. / chewed savagely on a
piece of tough grouse, the only re-
mains Oh ,ur dinner.
Would we ever reach the snow
Geld? A horrible thought crossed my
minl What if we had lost the diree-