The Worthington advance., 1900-03-30

IN ST. NICHOLAS Gen. Frederick
Funston tells of terrible days
experience in fighting storm above
the clouds in the Front range of
mountains in Colorado. 1t was ten
years ago, and he had but one COM
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
hour turned to the left and began
working along the side of the noun
tain.
Here our trials began in earnest.
The storm was upon us in all it's fury.
The wind blew almost hurricane,
and the air was so filled with sleet
and fine snow that it was impossible
to see more than 20 yards in any di-
rection. There would be an occasion
nj lull in the tunult, 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 hard fall and made
every step source of peril. The force
OF the wind, too, threw us down con-
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
of mail. We realized that our prog
ress was very slow, as we had not 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 rock which
afforded slight shelter from the icy
blast.
When I reached him he looked up
and said: "Old boy, this is the worst
box we were ever in. I 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 matter of only
q 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 OH the surface.
However, it was thought best to rest
a short time, and lay down by Kel-
logg.
After a short rest of about Is min
ntes we resumed the struggle, weak
as before, and much colder; but we
had recovered our wind, Il hard thing
to keep at this altitude.
1t 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. :,e~s
Slowly and painfully we pushed for
ward, crawling on all fours most of
the time. I chewed savagely on a
piece of tough grouse, the only re-
mains of our dinner.
field? A horrible thought crossed my
mind. What if we had lost the direc-
ton and were going the wrong way?
I did not mention my fears to Kel-
logg. What was the use?
Livery few moments we sank down
on our faces to recover our breath.
At such times found my mind wan
dering and could not think clearly.
Kellogg made several remarks with
out any particular meaning, and his
face had q vacant, sullen look. AL
most the last ray of hope was gone.
There was no complaining, no whin-
ing, only q sort of mad desperation
which made us resolve to keep NOV
ing to the last.
Finally. through q rift in the clouds