new to be more legible than the new one. The fog
grew darker and thicker, the day colder and windier, the drifts deeper;
but Birdie, whose four cunning feet had carried me 600 miles, and who
in all difficulties proves her value, never flinched or made a false
step, or gave me reason to be sorry that I had come on.

I got down to the St. Vrain Canyon in good time, and stopped at a house
thirteen miles from Longmount to get oats. I was white from head to
foot, and my clothes were frozen stiff. The women gave me the usual
invitation, "Put your feet in the oven"; and I got my clothes thawed
and dried, and a delicious meal consisting of a basin of cream and
bread. They said it would be worse on the plains, for it was an
easterly storm; but as I was so used to riding, I could get on, so we
started at 2:30. Not far off I met Edwards going up at last to Estes
Park, and soon after the snow-storm began in earnest--or rather I
entered the storm, which had been going on there for several hours. By
that time I had reached the prairie, only eight miles from Longmount,
and pushed on. It was simply fearful. It was twilight from the thick
snow, and I faced a furious east wind loaded with fine, hard-frozen
crystals, which literally made my face bleed. I could only see a very
short distance anywhere; the drifts were often two feet deep, and only
now and then, through the blinding whirl, I caught a glimpse of snow
through which withered sunflowers did not protrude, and then I knew
that I was on the track. But reaching a wild place, I lost it, and
still cantered on, trusting to the pony's sagacity. It failed for
once, for she took me on a lake and we fell through the ice into the
water, 100 yards from land, and had a hard fight back again. It grew
worse and worse. I had wrapped up my face, but the sharp, hard snow
beat on my eyes--the only exposed part--bringing tears into them, which
froze and closed up my eye-lids at once. You cannot imagine what that
was.

I had to take off one glove to pick one eye open, for as to the other,
the storm beat so savagely against it that I left it frozen, and drew
over it the double piece of flannel which protected my face. I could
hardly keep the other open by picking the ice from it constantly with
my numb fingers, in doing which I got the back of my hand slightly
frostbitten. It was truly awful at the time. I often thought,
"Suppose I am going south instead of east? Suppose Birdie shou