This Plan Was Promptly Put
Into Execution; The Sleds Were Constructed, The Heavy Baggage Was
Drawn Backward And Forward Until The Road Was Beaten, When They
Desisted From Their Fatiguing Labor.
The night turned out clear
and cold, and by morning, their road was incrusted with ice
sufficiently strong for their purpose.
They now set out on their
icy turnpike, and got on well enough, excepting that now and then
a horse would sidle out of the track, and immediately sink up to
the neck. Then came on toil and difficulty, and they would be
obliged to haul up the floundering animal with ropes. One, more
unlucky than the rest, after repeated falls, had to be abandoned
in the snow. Notwithstanding these repeated delays, they
succeeded, before the sun had acquired sufficient power to thaw
the snow, in getting all the rest of their horses safely to the
other side of the mountain.
Their difficulties and dangers, however, were not yet at an end.
They had now to descend, and the whole surface of the snow was
glazed with ice. It was necessary; therefore, to wait until the
warmth of the sun should melt the glassy crust of sleet, and give
them a foothold in the yielding snow. They had a frightful
warning of the danger of any movement while the sleet remained. A
wild young mare, in her restlessness, strayed to the edge of a
declivity. One slip was fatal to her; she lost her balance,
careered with headlong velocity down the slippery side of the
mountain for more than two thousand feet, and was dashed to
pieces at the bottom.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 322 of 442
Words from 86344 to 86615
of 118673
