nks. The track and roadbed was buried deep.
The last straggling trees were far behind. We stood on a great white
waste of snow, thirty feet in depth, not a landmark to be seen. If the
station was ahead, it was buried; if it was behind, we had missed it.
With that realization our spirits fell, for to turn back now meant
certain death. Then, to add to our danger, it had begun to turn fearfully
cold--that kind of a clear, steady cold that comes only in the mountains,
when the thermometer drops twenty-five degrees below zero and the air
cuts like a knife, while your nostrils freeze together when you breathe.
At the fire we had tied handkerchiefs over our ears and tied strings
around our trouser legs to keep the wind and snow out.

"Every little while we sat down and pounded our feet with our walking
sticks to keep up the circulation. At last we came to about two feet of a
telephone pole sticking up through the snowbank. We knew then that we
were off the road and were high up on the mountain. Luckily for us, the
snowbanks were so heavily crusted that they held us up without breaking
through. John suggested a plan: We would follow the post ends to the
Summit House; in that way we could not get lost. Two of us would stop at
the tip of one post, while the other, usually John, would push on to find
the next one. When it was located he would call and we would go to
him. Just how long we traveled in that manner I do not know. It seemed
days, but, of course, it was only a brief time. Often I was positive that
the posts were at least a half a mile apart. My shoes were so badly
cracked at the seams that my feet grew very numb with the cold, and
before long I knew I was freezing.

"Time and again we thought we heard something coming over the snow behind
us. The air was clear as a bell, and, as we pushed on, this sound
frightened us more and more. Our imaginations began to play strange
pranks. I remember that I was too frightened to even move, so sometimes
I would just stand shivering and listening. We hardly spoke a word. By
and by the time came when I was too cold to leave my post for the next
one. I just put my arms about it and begged the fellows not to wait for
me, but to go on and save themselves; to dig a hole in the snow and leave
me in it. But John, dear old John, refused and, putting his arm about me,
he dragged me on and on. He tried to make me angry by striking me, and
warned me not to go to sleep or I would freeze. But I t