Lost in the Snow.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 140, 16 July 1872, Page 7

Lost in the Snow.

(Prom the Greeley Tribune.) Tuesday, the 23rd day of January, 1872, will long be remembered by the people of w orthern Colorado. Snow covered theground, yet the weather was pleasant, and the mountains stood out grandly in the sunlight. On the afternoon of this day, Jeremiah Fisk left the Higley coal-mine with a load of coal for his home in Greely. A little after four o’clock he heard a noise like the roaring of a great waterspout. Instinctively he turned towards the mountains ; they were calm and beautiful as in the morning ; but northward, where the black hills rise from the plains, he saw a vast wall of cloud apI proaching with the speed of a whirlwind. The roaring increased. The frozen tidal wave touched the foot-hills, and chased the sunbeams from the mountains like an avalanche. The horses rushed forward in terror, and a second later they were in darkness, the i storm sweeping over them with resistless fury. Snow, finer than the finest Hour, filled the air, so that it was impossible to see a I hundred feet in any direction, j Fisk wrapped a buffalo robe around his I neck and shoulders, and urged the trembling | horses on, but they could not keep the road, and in a short time the plain was as trackless as the sea. After the horses had left the | beaten way they could scarcely walk, and it | was not long before they refused to move. I The darkness increased. No time must be j lost. The traces were unhitched, and mountj ing the strongest horse, Fisk attempted to | urge him forward, but he would not go. j Then he led them for a time, but finding that i it required all his strength to keep the buffalo robe from blowing away, lie left the team, and pushed on before the wind, for the wind was bis only compass. The storm increased in violence every moment, and it soon became dark and intensely cold. In many places the snow was deep, and more than twenty times the strong man was hurled into the drifts, so terrible was the storm. By eight o’clock, the mercury stood at ten degrees below zero. The snow blew from all points of the compass, and penetrated every stitch of his clothing that was not protected by the buffalo robe. He knew that several houses were near, but how could he find a single one of them, when on that very night the engineers on the railroad were unable to find the water-tank at Pierce Station in the darkness I The man knew that death was on his trail. His strength was failing rapidly, and the cold increasing with the fury of the storm. All his garments were frozen stiff, and his eyelashes coated with ice. It seems that lie crossed the Cache la Poudre river a few hundred feet below Boyd’s Ranche ; but he has only a faint recollection of stumbling down a bank, and of dreaming that he might possibly be near a house. He felt that his time had almost come. To go on was madness, yet he could not stop, except to brush away the frozen tears, for a wife with her babes is waiting and praying, not three miles away from his sinking heart. He managed to walk an hour longer, when a dizziness came on, and Iris brain reeled like the storm. Then he began digging a hole in the deepest drift he could find. It was like digging his own grave, for lie knew not how I soon he might fall from exhaustion. After | working a long time the ground was reached, | and then, drawing the robe over his bead, he I waited for the snow to bury him. The wind i did its work well, and in an hour eighteen j inches of snow covered his roof of fur. Never did a man long to sleep more than j he, but he knew that if lie clused his eyes, it ! would be for ever. He fought with his j senses like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, and kept awake. Burning pains shot through his swollen limbs, and his legs cramped as if on the rack, and finally something like nettles prickled in bis boots. Then he knew that his feet were freezing. Washe to die after all the hours of agony ? No, he would keep his muscles moving, and he did so long after his toes were frozen stiff’. Hour after hour this man from the green mountains fought with death, while snowy billows wore rolling above his head. At dayi light lie crawled out. Houses were near. | Then lie staggered and fell ; got up again, I and dragged his frozen limbs towards the limits of the town. After walking an hour, I he reached Cooper’s Ranche—(the summer j residence of our town clerk)—and pushed in | the back door. Another hour was consumed jin making a fire. Some matches, a piece of candle, and an old broad axe were found, j Then he molted snow in a pail, and thawed I his frozen feet. He also found dry clothing, and a pair of cavalry hoots, j Although completely exhausted, he started | for Greeley, a distance of two miles. The mercury was eighteen degrees below zero, and it took him an hour to walk a single mile. Often ho thought lie would fall to the ground. The houses seemed to spin round | as lie passed them, and familiar streets, in which be saw children playing the day before, were but the landmarks of a dream, j At last lie reached his father’s gate, and | staggered to the door. Then there was a I rush and a scream, and the next instant a j black and bloated face was lying on a woman’s breast.