Snow Bound

Snow-bound for three days!  I could not write yesterday it was so awful.  People gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing but the storm.  The hunters all kept by the great fire in the living room, only going out to bring in logs and clear the snow from the door and windows.  I never spent a more fearful night than two nights ago, alone in my cabin in the storm, with the roof lifting, the mud cracking and coming off, and the fine snow hissing through the chinks between the logs, while splittings and breaking of dead branches, wind-wrung and snow-laden, went on incessantly, with screeching, howlings, thunder and lighting, and many unfamiliar sounds besides.  After snowing fiercely all day, another foot of it fell in the early night, and, after drifting against my door, blocked me effectually in.  About midnight the mercury fell to zero and soon after a gale rose, which lasted for ten hours.  My window frame is swilled, and shuts, apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it.  I had gone to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over my face.  Between two and three I was awoke by the cabin being shifted from underneath by the wind, and the sheet was frozen to my lips.  I put out my hands, and the bed was thickly covered with fine snow.  Getting up to investigate matters, I found the floor some inches deep in parts in fine snow, and a gust of fine, needle-like snow stung my face.  The bucket of water was solid ice.  I lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the men came to see if I “was alive,” and to dig me out.  They brought a can of hot water, which turned to ice before I could use it.  I dressed standing in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras were covered with snow.  When I ran to the house, not a mountain or anything else could be seen, and the snow on one side was drifted higher than the roof.  The air, as high as one could see, was one white, stinging smoke of snow-drift-a terrific sight.  In the living-room the snow was driving through the chinks, and Mrs. Dewy was shoveling it from the floor.  Mr. D.’s beard was hoary with frost in a room with a fire all night.  Evans was lying ill, with his bed covered with snow.  Returning from my cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for the day, I was lifted off my feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things, writing-book and letter included, were carried in different directions.  Some, including a valuable photograph are irrecoverable.  The writing-book was found, some hours afterwards, under three feet of snow.

There are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one can hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding.  We have been slightly overcrowded in our one room.  Chess, music, and whist have been resorted to.  One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted himself to keeping my ink from freezing.  We all sat in great cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch running out of the logs.  The isolation is extreme, for we are literally snowed-up, and the other settler in the Park and “Mountain Jim” are both at Denver.  Late in the evening the storm ceased.  In some places the ground is bare of snow, while in others all irregularities are leveled, and the drifts are forty feet deep.  Nature is grand under this new aspect.  The cold is awful; the high wind with the mercury at zero would skin any part exposed to it.

I.L.B.