Year: 1872

Presently the overland stage forded


the now fast receding stream and start


ed toward Carson on its first trip siDce
the flood came. We hesitated no lon
ger, now, but took up our march in its
wake, and trotted merrily along, for we
had good confidence in the drivers


bump of locality. But our horses were
no match for the fresh stage team. We
were soon left out of sight; but it was
no matter, for we had the deep ruts the
wheels made for guide. By this time
it was three in the afternoon, and con-
sequently it was not very long before
night came-and not with O. lingering
twilight, but with a sudden shutting
down like cellar door, as is its habit
in that country. The snowfall was
still as thick as ever, and of course we
could not see fifteen steps before us;
but all about us the white glare of the
snow-bed enabled US to discern the
smooth sugar-loaf mounds made by the
of us the two faint grooves which we
knew were the steadily filling and slow
ly disappearing wheel-tracks.


Now those sage bushes were all about
the same height-three to four feet;
they stood just about seven feet apart,
all over the vast desert; each of them
was a mere snow-mound, now; in any
direction that you proceeded (the same
as in well laid out orchard) you would
find yourself moving down distinctly
defined avenue, with row of these
avenue the customary width of a road, |
nice and level in its breadth, and rising
at the sides in the most natural way, by
reason of the mounds. But we had not
thought of this. Then imagine the
chilly thrill that shot through US when
it finally occurred to us, far in the night,
that since the last faint trace of the
wheel tracks had long ago been buried
from sight, we might now be wandering
down a mere sage brush avenue, miles
away from the road and diverging fur
ther and further away from it all the
time. Having a cake of ice slipped
down ones back is placid comfort to it.
There was sudden leap and stir of
blood that had been asleep for an hour,
and as sudden rising of all the drows-
ing activities in our minds and bodies.
We were alive and awake at once-and
shaking and quaking with consterna-
ton, too. There was an instant halting
and dismounting, bending low and an
anxious scanning of the road-bed. Use
less, of course; for if faint depression
could not be discerned from an altitude
of four or five feet above it, it certainly
could not with ones nose ne; rly against
it.


We seemed to be in the road, but
that was no proof. We tested this by
walking in various direCtions-the reg
ular snow mounds and the regular aV-
enues between them convinced each
man that he had found the true road,
and that the others had found only false
ones. Plainly the situation was des-
perate. We were cold and stiff and the
horses were tired. We decided to build
a sage brush fire and camp out till
morning. This was wise, because if we
were wandering from the right road
and the snow storm continued another
day, our case would be the next to
hopeless if we kept on.


All agreed that q camp fire was what
would como nearest to saving US now,
and so we set about building it. We
could find no matches, and SO we tried
to make shift with the pistols. Not a
man in the party had ever tried to do
such thing before, but not a man in
the party doubted that it could be done,
and without any trouble-because every
man in the party had read about it in
books many time, and had naturally
come to believe it with trusting simplici.
ty, Just as he had long ago accepted
and believed that other common book
fraud about Indians and lost hunters
making fire by rubbing two sticks to-
gether.


We huddled together on our knees in
the deep snow, and the horses put their
noses together and bowed their patient
heads over us; and while the feathery


flakes eddied down and turned us into
group of white statuary, we proceeded
with the momentous experiment. We