The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1937-05-07
Early-Day School Teacher Attempting to Reach Home
New Years Day, 1878, Awoke Near Midnight to Find
Stage Stalled, Driver Gone, Herself Only Passenger

the room and out of his heavy clothing
no one gave any thought to the stage
outside. The driver was unable to talk.
The team must have started almost
Immediately after the driver tumbled
off the box and entered the station.
horses had travelled a couple of miles
beyond the station when they stopped
with a jolt which awakened Miss john
ston inside the coach.
whats the matter now, CAL" she
called.
Receiving no answer, she called
again, and then, alarmed, scrambled
out from under her blankets, unbut-
toned the curtains and looked out.
All she could see was swirling snow.
She could feel the bite of the cold.
Gal, where are we?" she called.
Still no answer
She clambered out of the stage and
empty.
Frantic, she started to run forward
past the team calling for Cal. The
wind choked her cries. The horses, to-
tally exhausted, paid no attention to
her screams.
She fell down.
AS she scrambled to her feet she
Gained herself with an effort.
Cal, she thought, undoubtedly had
been overcome by the cold and either
had fallen or had been jolted from the
seat and was lying back along the trail
somewhere.
He would freeze to death. She must
get help.
She remembered hearing Cal say
that they soon would be at Dearborn
Crossing. She tried to get the lines to-
gether, and found they had become en-
tangled about the hind legs of the off
wheeler. She pulled them loose. Snow
was drifting about the wheels of the
stage.
From the interior of the coach she
dragged a couple of the blankets under
which she had been sleeping and clam
bered to the drivers seat. She wrapped
herself up as well as she could ana
know, of course, that they had already
passed Dearborn Crossing, and with all
her stamina she drove forward in the
hope of getting help to find Cal Adams.
There was no trace of a road visible.
She just kept going, the only thing
she could do. It finally seemed that
her efforts were of no avail: The horses
where, she did not know. She had just
decided the best thing to do was to
unhitch the horses and turn them
loose, then crawl into the stage coach,
v herself with blankets and wait
until the night and the storm were
I'VE
Just then she saw a light in the dis
lance, and hope famed again in her
heart. She drove towards it. About 100
yards from the light, which she now
could see came from a house, she en-
countered a fence. The horses stopped.
She dropped the reins, clambered down
from the box, managed in some way to
get through the fence and walked to
the cabin.
Without the formality of knocking
she opened the door and entered the
room where Cal Adams had fallen eX-
hausted and partly unconscious nearly
two hourse before. It was 2 o'clock in
the morning.
The six woodsmen were still before
the fire after having cared for Cal and
eaten their meal.
They leaped to their feet and as
sisted her into the room, removed her
wraps. When she told them Cal Adams
had fallen from the drivers box and
must be lying along the trail some
place. they told her that he wa in the
next o with his hands and feet
frozen. She rushed in to see him, blam.
ing herself for his misfortune.
Cal, who to this time had not spoken
! ! reused sufficiently to tell Miss John.