BLIZZARDS

It was just like Louise Reynolds to arrive on the wings of a blizzard,

wearing a straw hat and spring suit. Louise led the seasons, she never

followed them, and she preceded that particular storm by about two

hours; but she was justified, for it was April and she was on her way

from California.

In this land of the unexpected even the weather disregarded all

established precedents. A glorious Indian Summer night extended into

January, or a sudden blizzard would swoop down from the North in

October or April and leave us snowed in for days.

That is exactly what happened upon this occasion and most of Louise’s

visit was spent in shovelling snow for the pure joy of the exercise.

That energetic young person had to do something in lieu of tennis or

golf.

The prairies were covered with a fluffy mantle of purest white, great

drifts filled the gulches and the roads were utterly obliterated. Long

after the storm the men had to go about on horseback for no wagon

could be moved through the deep snow.

At this juncture Louise announced that she had all of her reservations

through to Baltimore, where she was to officiate as bridesmaid. She

was obliged to go and we had to take her to the railroad.

We could scarcely go on horseback with baggage, there wasn’t a sleigh

in the country, certainly none on the ranch, but if Necessity was the

Mother of Invention, Owen was a near relative. He never failed to find

some way of meeting the most difficult problem. If Louise must go it

devolved upon him to see that she reached the station and so he

produced a sled, a disreputable old affair, used for the exalted

purpose of hauling dead animals to “the dump”—but still it was a sled

and under Owen’s direction it was scrubbed and transformed into the

most luxurious equipage by having a packing box nailed on the back

and covered with rugs. Louise and I perched on the box, with heavy

robes tucked in about us, the suit cases were at our feet and Owen sat

on the trunk in front to drive.

There was only one draw-back, the sled had no tongue to keep it from

running on to the heels of the horses, so Owen cut a hole in the

bottom of the sled through which he stuck a broom-stick. My task was

to work this improvised brake when we went down hill by jabbing the

broom-stick into the snow. It worked beautifully except that the

friction against the hard snow broke pieces of it off and it grew

perceptibly shorter as we advanced.

In order to avoid some especially deep gulches we left the valley and

followed a high ridge. It was much longer, but we had allowed the

entire day for the trip. There was no danger of becoming lost as long

as we could see, for we knew too well the country and the general

direction to be followed.

No incident marred the joy of that day. When the horses floundered and

almost disappeared from sight in a snow-filled gulch, leaving the sled

stranded like an Ark on a gleaming Ararat, we had only to dig the

horses out with a shovel which had been taken for the purpose and

after getting them on the level ground, go back and hitch a long rope

to the sled, draw it across the gulch and proceed upon our way.

The light of the sun upon the snow was so intense it was necessary to

wear colored glasses to avoid snow blindness, and being muffled in

furs, we looked like three bears in goggles. Our wraps kept us

perfectly warm and it was a merry ride. The adventure filled us with

joy as we glided over the trackless world in which we alone moved.

There was no suggestion of dreariness or desolation in the scene.

Under the magic touch of the sun the world burst forth into a miracle

of glory and beauty which held us spellbound. The sky was cloudless,

not a shadow fell across that dazzling white expanse, which flashed

and sparkled with all the prismatic colors. Far to the west Pike’s

Peak stood, a marvel of varying lights and shadows, its head resting

on the soft blue bosom of the sky. Its commanding height had filled

the Indian of the Plains with worshipful awe, it was to him “the Gate

of Heaven, the abiding place of the Great Spirit.” According to his

own testimony, the one inevitable duty in the life of the Indian is

the duty of prayer—and how often as he looked upon that distant

mountain must the red hunter have paused in the midst of the vast

prairies, his soul uplifted and an unspoken prayer on his lips!

The whole aspect of the country was changed, all the familiar

landmarks were gone. Except for the hills, the surface of the prairie

was perfectly level as though the Great Spirit had stretched his hand

forth from that mystic mountain and passing it over the world had left

it smooth and stainless.

It was a wonderful experience, and when toward evening we reached the

railroad we were thrilled and triumphant over our accomplishment. The

night was spent in the little four-room “hotel,” we saw Louise safely

on board the eastbound express the next morning, then returned to the

ranch.

To be out after a blizzard is one thing, to be out in one is quite

another, and we always grew apprehensive when the sky became suddenly

overcast and the snow began to fall from leaden clouds. What if the

storm should catch the herders and the sheep too far away from the

camp?

They were all warned to range their sheep to the North if it

threatened to storm, as most of the blizzards came from that direction

and the sheep would go before the wind back to camp and safety. But

they will not face it and, if unmindful of his orders, the herder took

them South and a sudden storm came, he could not turn his sheep back

to the camp; they would drift on and on before the wind, sometimes

plunging over a bank to be buried beneath the drifting snow or piling

up and smothering each other.

One winter just as Owen and I were starting home from California we

received a telegram from Steve saying that during a blizzard the buck

herd had been lost. Owen had some very important business which

detained him when we reached Denver, so he asked me to go on to the

ranch, have Steve organize the men into searching parties and look

through every gulch in the vicinity for any discolored holes on the

top of the drifts which would be caused by the breath of the sheep if

they were under the snow. For two days the men searched and finally

came to a deep bank of snow on the top of which were found the

discolored holes they sought; they dug down and discovered the bucks.

A few had been smothered, but most of them were taken out alive after

having been buried for ten days! During the storm the herder had left

them and the poor distracted things had drifted over an embankment and

were entombed under the snow.

When anyone speaks of “good-for-nothing Mexicans” I think of Fidel, a

mere lad, who had taken his sheep South on a clear morning, but was

overtaken by a storm before he could get them back to the corrals. He

and his dog did everything they could do to turn them, but they

drifted farther and farther away. Fidel stayed with them, guiding them

away from the gulches until they reached a railway cut. There Steve

found them twenty-four hours later when we feared that Fidel had

perished with his sheep. Facing death alone in the freezing wind and

blinding, smothering snow, hour after hour he had kept his sheep from

piling up. He not only saved them all, but they were in better

condition than many in the corrals at the camps. Not for a moment had

he left them. His hands and feet were frozen; he barely escaped

freezing to death and on that day we learned the true meaning of

“Fidelity.”

* * * * *

Then once more Fate took a hand in our affairs and a blizzard changed

the whole course of our lives.

We owned our land and no one could encroach upon us, but after a few

years we began to notice forlorn little shacks built here and there on

the open range by the poor home-seekers who, attracted by the prospect

of free land, had begun “homesteading.” They built flimsy little

houses, scratched up the surface of the prairie for a few inches and

raised pitiful, straggling crops. The settlers were coming in! The

opening wedge of that great onrush had been thrust deep into the heart

of the prairie. In the undisputed possession of our own land we were

not disturbed. While we knew that it meant the occupation of the free

range and the passing of the large ranches, eventually, we scarcely

realized how soon it would come and were not prepared to receive an

offer from an Eastern syndicate to buy the entire ranch—to cut it

into small units to be sold as farms.

The era of “dry-farming” had just begun, when by scientific methods,

deep ploughing and the conservation of all moisture, dry land might be

successfully cultivated without irrigation. It was a dream of the

future of the prairie region, impossible to visualize, and I laughed

in my ignorance, as Owen read me the letter.

“How perfectly absurd. Imagine trying to farm out here; the grangers

would starve to death in a year unless they had stock of some sort.

Surely you would never think of selling out?”

“I don’t know, Esther, the homesteaders can’t come on to our deeded

land, but they are filing on all the Government land. In a short time

there will be no more free range, and did you ever stop to consider

that our land will soon be so valuable that we can’t afford to run

sheep on it?”

In that last sentence I saw the handwriting on the wall. It was only a

question of time and this phase, too, of our life would pass.

In the East life seems to be static, but in the West it is in a state

of flux and conditions are constantly changing.

Perhaps I had inherited the static state of mind for I had taken it

for granted that all the rest of our days were to be spent there on

the ranch under the shadow of the mountain. Suddenly a realization of

the facts swept over me. In a sense we had been pioneers, we had

blazed a trail that others were to follow and like the Indians we,

too, were destined to move on. However, before you are thirty to

regard yourself as a hoary-headed pioneer requires a series of mental

gymnastics and, while my brain was going through a few preparatory

exercises, I did not take the question of selling out very seriously.

After all those years of struggle just as it had been brought to

perfection, after we had put into it the best of our life, youth,

energy and work, a part of our very selves, it did not seem possible

that we could part with the ranch. Owen felt much as I did, but he was

the first to realize that we had come again to the parting of the ways

and that a decision must be made.

Yet—in the end—it wasn’t the financial consideration nor a deep

conviction that the future development of the country would be

retarded if we remained, but an unexpected blizzard which turned the

scale and set us adrift again.

* * * * *

The sun rose clear on the 19th of October, but during the morning it

began to grow cloudy.

Owen and several of the men were at the railroad station where they

were shipping lambs. During the afternoon the wind began to blow, it

grew much colder and snow fell.

The next morning it was storming very hard and Steve, after arranging

to have hay hauled to the various camps, went out on horseback to see

that all the sheep were kept in the corrals. I was greatly relieved

when Owen got home in the middle of the afternoon. Ten thousand lambs

had been loaded and started on their way in spite of the storm, but

the drive back to the ranch had been very hard, for hour by hour the

storm increased in fury. The ground was covered and even the dull grey

sky was hidden by dense clouds of powdery snow which did not seem to

fall upon the earth but was blown in long horizontal lines across the

prairies by the force of a mighty gale. It filled the gulches and

piled in deep drifts. It was driven against the house with such force

it sifted through the smallest crack. The windows on the North and

West were covered with a solid coating of snow, the wind whistled and

moaned and tore at the shutters as if trying to carry them with it on

a wild race over the plains. It was impossible to see the corrals,

even the garden fence was lost behind the driving, swirling snow. To

open the door was to inhale a freezing gust of snow-laden air,

millions of icy particles blinded the eyes and took away the breath.

We knew that the sheep were all in the corrals, but we feared that

unless the herders watched them carefully they would pile up as the

snow drifted over the high sides of the inclosure. The rest of the

stock was protected and my heart was filled with thankfulness that

Owen and the men had been able to reach the ranch. They went about the

place like white wraiths doing the necessary things. Above the howling

of the wind not a sound could be heard; a shout was carried miles away

as soon as it left the lips. By five o’clock it was dark.

About eight o’clock, Mary came in and told Owen that Steve wanted to

see him. When Owen returned, instead of coming into the living-room,

he went to the closet, took down his short, fleece-lined riding coat

and began to put it on.

“What’s the matter, Owen, you are not going out?”

“I must,” he said, quietly, winding a long scarf about his neck,

“Steve says that Dorn went out yesterday afternoon with a load of hay

for the camp on Six Shooter; he should have come back last night or

certainly this morning. He’s new and doesn’t know the country and he

may be lost. I’m going to see if I can find him.”

My heart stood still; the camp on Six Shooter gulch was fully eight

miles away. Eight miles in that storm! It did not seem possible that a

man could live to go a mile.

“Oh, Owen, I can’t let you go! Don’t you suppose he is at the camp?”

“I don’t know, he may be, but I must go and find out. We can’t take a

chance on a man’s being lost.” In the face of that argument there was

nothing to say and nothing to do but accept it.

“Who is going with you?”

“No one”—Owen did not look at me as he answered—“I can’t ask any of

the men to face this storm.”

I understood; he couldn’t require any of his men to risk their lives.

A hand of ice closed about my heart and deadened every sensibility.

Like a machine I went about helping Owen get ready and at last went to

the kitchen to bring him some coffee just before he left. A man was

standing by the door muffled in wraps. I stood still.

“Why, Bill, where have you been?”

“I ain’t ‘been’, I’m goin’. I’m goin’ with Mr. Brook. A man ain’t got

no business out a night like this alone.”

“Bill!” It was all I could say—but he understood.

When Owen came out he tried to dissuade him, but Bill was determined.

“I know I don’t have to go, Mr. Brook, you never asked me, but I’m a

goin’, there ain’t nothin’ can keep me.”

I had never seen him so serious, all the old half bantering tone was

gone and they went out together, master and man, each risking his life

for the sake of another.

I tried to watch them but instantly they were lost to my sight as a

vague grey cloud closed about them.

How the night passed I do not know. I kept the fires up and the coffee

hot and walked miles, back and forth, back and forth. I did not think

of sleeping. It was useless to try to read. I could not see the

words—the printed page was blank and I could only see the figures of

two men on horseback, beaten, buffeted, fighting for their lives

against the cruel snow-laden gale. I saw them separated, perhaps,

trying to get through the gulches on their floundering horses, or

walking to keep from freezing and then perhaps exhausted—lying down

to rest while that last deadly sensation of sleepiness crept over

them.

Daylight came at last, but still I walked. I pushed my breakfast away

untasted and tried to occupy myself with the duties of the day. I felt

as though I should scream aloud if that howling wind did not cease,

but hour after hour passed and there was no other sound. The men came

and went about their work quietly, speaking but little and then in

subdued tones as in the presence of death; over us all hung the pall

of terrifying uncertainty.

When occasionally it was possible to catch a glimpse of the corrals or

the blacksmith shop I knew that the wind must be abating and time

after time I knocked the snow from the windows and stood straining my

eyes into that misty, vague out-of-doors. Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock.

Something moved along the edge of the pond, the vague outlines of some

animal, a slight lull in the wind and I could see that it was a

horseman, another followed—I caught up a cape, flung open the door,

dashed out into the storm through drifts, over every detaining

obstacle until I reached the corral and—Owen.

They were safe, but so weary and worn they could scarcely speak. Their

faces were swollen, having been whipped and lashed by the icy

particles the wind had driven against them like bits of steel from a

mighty blast furnace, their eyebrows and lashes were solid ice, their

lips cracked and bleeding.

After a night of horror, at three in the morning, they had found Dorn

at the Six Shooter camp comfortably sleeping with the Mexican herder!

When the storm began he made no attempt to come back to the ranch, not

stopping to think that his non-appearance would cause any anxiety,

besides endangering the lives of two men.

“I was so hot when I seen Dorn nice and warm all cuddled up there with

that Dago I jest drug him out by the collar and shook him. Anybody

that’ud sleep with a Mexican had orter freeze to death. Gosh! Here was

Mr. Brook and me amblin’ over this whole blamed country, flounderin’

through snow drifts as high as this house, gettin’ our horses down and

most freezin’ to death, blintin’ a no account thing like that.” Bill

was himself again.

Their knowledge of the country and presence of mind had saved them,

for once when they found that it had grown warmer and apparently the

wind had ceased, they realized that the horses had turned with the

wind so that it was at their backs, they forced the poor things into

the face of the bitter gale again and went on. They passed the camp

without seeing it and had gone beyond when the wind brought them the

smell of the sheep, they turned back and after searching found the

cabin. It was a narrow escape for they were too exhausted to have gone

farther.

A few days later we learned that old John, who had been our mail

carrier, had perished in the storm. He had gone out to try to find his

cattle and did not return. His wife and little son were alone and when

they were able to get out and look for him, they found him just

outside the garden fence lying frozen and half eaten by the coyotes.

I thought much during the following days and finally I came to a

conclusion.

“Owen, if you want to sell out I’m willing—it will have to come some

day, I realize that, and besides—there is too much at stake. I don’t

believe I can ever live through another blizzard.”

* * * * *

In three months all the stock on the ranch was sold, a caretaker was

placed in charge of the home ranch, which we retained, and we moved to

Denver. But instead of selling out to the syndicate, Owen decided to

put our lands on the market himself and they were listed for sale.

It was the end of the old life; we had made way for the settlers.